The Rumour Thread

[Kaleb Daark]

21 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Wouldn’t be that weird as it’s mentioned couple of times in the lore that sigmar worked together with intelligent gargants in the age of myth. So then being from the realm of light wouldn’t be a stretch. 

They could be the children of behemoth

Edited November 16, 2019 by Kaleb Daark

[Kirjava13]

52 minutes ago, Overread said:

@Kirjava13 but the pre-orders went live at 10am? I can't help but feel that he set himself up to fail considering that GW were saying how fast this was going to sell out and all the prior boxes like that have sold out pretty darn fast close to the launch time. Then again even at 10am opening times once you add in lag for actually opening the door and such there often isn't "that" much time esp when everyone online already has their details entered and is probably using 3 or 4 tabs to try and get a least one order through. I know my local store manager on the Feast of Bones got about two or three orders in before they went out of pre-order stock online. Of course he did have two or three boxes get into the store itself a week later on launch day. 

He's a GW employee having to beg for more stock because there's almost no supply of stuff guaranteed to sell. Austrian retail culture is different to the UK- not so much stuff is bought online, people like to be able to have something in their hand before they make a purchase and if the only way to do it is online then that's going to engender a lot of ill will. Well, I say "going to"- it already has round here. The store is getting a few hard copies delivered, but they're already reserved. So nobody is going to be able to actually walk into the store and buy one. 

[Greyshadow]

When the Sisters first launched in the 1990s they didn't sell. I guess GW were somewhat cautious and underestimated demand.

[HollowHills]

20 minutes ago, Greyshadow said:

When the Sisters first launched in the 1990s they didn't sell. I guess GW were somewhat cautious and underestimated demand.

I think it's part of their current very aggressive business tactics. If you know something will stay in stock then you don't rush to buy it, but then after a couple of weeks maybe you decide not to go ahead with the purchase anyway. It's like how they give such short notices on releases, they don't want people to avoid buying a current release with the knowledge something else is coming up soon.

By creating this limited supply culture with army box releases they can basically condition people into believing if they want something it has to be bought immediately. 

[Kurrilino]

Can someone enlighten me, what Sisters of Battle have to do with AOS rumours?

[Icegoat]

Well it continues the trend that all these box sets looncurse feast of bones carrion war all have been limited runs featuring key parts of their respective armies that have languished unreleased for almost a year. How ridiculous it is that battletome FEC and sylvaneth both feature on the front bleeding cover models that cannot be bought from games workshop. It's absolutely ridiculous. Arcregents are a vital part of FEC and you can't even buy one.. 

It's just not a good way to treat new customers. Product should be available otherwise people will just not bother. 

[EccentricCircle]

1 hour ago, Kurrilino said:

Can someone enlighten me, what Sisters of Battle have to do with AOS rumours?

It has important implications for what might happen with AoS releases. We need to understand what's going on in 40k land (space?) In order to properly figure out the context of what's going on with our preferred system. Plus its not like this thread is actually on topic more than twice a month!

[Chikout]

It always interesting to read the conspiracy theories about forced scarcity.

The reason gw produces limited releases of products is much simpler- they are terrified of over supplying a product.

Recent history is full of examples of companies making too many of a product that didn't sell and resulted in the bankruptcy of the company. Thq's udraw tablet is a good example. 

The story goes that Gorkamorka nearly killed gw. Gw took a big bet on it but it didn't sell. 

To illustrate the problem let's do an extreme example. Let's say gw produces a £100 box that sells for double the cost to make it. If they make a million copies but sell half a million, their profit is zero. If the sell any less than that they start losing money. If they make 10,000 copies and sell them all , their profit is £500,000.

 

The ideal situation would be for gw to accurately gauge demand and make the correct amount of product for the audience. 

There are a couple of reasons why this is difficult for gw. The decision on how many boxes to produce is made months in advance. Recently gw's sales have been growing rapidly. So a number that would have been sufficient six months ago, no longer is. 

We have also seen with the blood of the phoenix box  and the wrath and rapture box that even in these extremely successful times for gw, they are capable of overestimating demand. 

All this goes to say that gw will always err on the side of caution with quantities of future releases. 

[Overread]

Also lets not forget all these boxes are short term sales boosts for products which essentially have a shelf life as long as the plastic mould lasts (which is a pretty long time). Unlike electronic companies who are eager to sell you a new model in the new year; GW won't be making a new Archregent every year. So they can be cautious with their estimations knowing that even if they sell out of the boxed set; their regular retail will pick up the slack.

The only real oddity is that they are leaving some big gaps between the boxed set and retail releases for some products and not others.

[Kaleb Daark]

4 minutes ago, Chikout said:

It always interesting to read the conspiracy theories about forced scarcity.

The reason gw produces limited releases of products is much simpler- they are terrified of over supplying a product.

Recent history is full of examples of companies making too many of a product that didn't sell and resulted in the bankruptcy of the company. Thq's udraw tablet is a good example. 

The story goes that Gorkamorka nearly killed gw. Gw took a big bet on it but it didn't sell. 

To illustrate the problem let's do an extreme example. Let's say gw produces a £100 box that sells for double the cost to make it. If they make a million copies but sell half a million, their profit is zero. If the sell any less than that they start losing money. If they make 10,000 copies and sell them all , their profit is £500,000.

 

The ideal situation would be for gw to accurately gauge demand and make the correct amount of product for the audience. 

There are a couple of reasons why this is difficult for gw. The decision on how many boxes to produce is made months in advance. Recently gw's sales have been growing rapidly. So a number that would have been sufficient six months ago, no longer is. 

We have also seen with the blood of the phoenix box  and the wrath and rapture box that even in these extremely successful times for gw, they are capable of overestimating demand. 

All this goes to say that gw will always err on the side of caution with quantities of future releases. 

They could just open a pre order window say of one weekend or even one day.

you take your orders and payment and make that number.

its still limited, its still a single chance to buy but that way everyone who’s serious about getting one gets one.

Then you start your production run with the confidence that everything you make will be sold. 
 

If this was a box limited to 500 world wide and contained the index finger of a saint then I’d understand, but in that circumstance it would be priced accordingly.

This is just sloppy.

at the very least technology now allows the ring fencing of pre-order stock to different regions and also should include stores.

that way for those of us that like going into store we know we stand a chance.

our store manager today  was literally speechless, the poor bloke.  He had five customers who had said that they purposely didnt order it on line because they wanted to order in store. 
 

what could he tell them?

 

they'll always just sit at home and preorder now.  Disappointing for all.

 

fingers crossed they learn from this, as it impacts on all their products not just 40k.

[alghero81]

Why do people think Hysh and say Aelves? Possible but I don’t think Hysh is populated only by light Aelves and true enough there’s not many unsolved rumour engines but it could be something else and the reiteration of the word huge mixed with giant must have something to do with it. And Aelves are not notoriously giant...

[alghero81]

9 minutes ago, Kaleb Daark said:

They could just open a pre order window say of one weekend or even one day.

 

They technically have it when they do the made to order. It could be a similar situation. Problem is these boxes have surely a much smaller margin and is not in their interest produce too many.

But the idea to limit one for address mentioned above is interesting.

[Overread]

Just note but whilst GW produces the plastic in their HQ their cardstock is pretty much all from China. So a pre-order would have to be around 2 months or more. The Inferno reprints are like that and leave something like 50 working days between you ordering and GW expecting to ship them. That's a long time to tie up a lot of money and orders for people and you can bet many would say "eh its not worth it I'll wait till retail". 

I have heard hints that GW might have looked at buying their own card printing machine at some stage; which would give them a lot more internal flexibility with releases if they could afford one and if it was economical to run. 

[sandlemad]

29 minutes ago, Chikout said:

The reason gw produces limited releases of products is much simpler- they are terrified of over supplying a product.

Recent history is full of examples of companies making too many of a product that didn't sell and resulted in the bankruptcy of the company. Thq's udraw tablet is a good example. 

The story goes that Gorkamorka nearly killed gw. Gw took a big bet on it but it didn't sell. 

You don't even have to go that far back, you can look at how badly Dreadfleet flopped in 2011. Almost all of GW's business practices for non-core games (Underworlds, Warcry, Blackstone Fortress, etc) can be traced back to a desperate concern not to repeat that. Same applies for their army boxes.

[novakai]

23 minutes ago, alghero81 said:

Why do people think Hysh and say Aelves? Possible but I don’t think Hysh is populated only by light Aelves and true enough there’s not many unsolved rumour engines but it could be something else and the reiteration of the word huge mixed with giant must have something to do with it. And Aelves are not notoriously giant...

Well it just speculation and guessing of what it could be. Also Giants of Hysh is a bit an out of this world concept so not many people would except such a thing to happen.  hints of anything coming from Hysh has always been heavily related to the Twins and Aelves, though there are stuff like Order of knights, the Cypher lords, and  Grots who worship the sun, so anything is possible.

 

[sandlemad]

11 minutes ago, xking said:

Why did Dreadfleet  fail? I was not around.

A combination of a high price, models that could not be used in other games/systems at all (hence the emphasis on more recent boxed games having rules or being suitable for AoS/40k), and inflated stock buoyed up on the success of the new Space Hulk released the previous year. SH did sell out rapidly and Dreadfleet numbers unwisely took that into account. It didn't sell out and eventually all unsold copies in GW stores were recalled and its memory more or less buried. 

[Overread]

20 minutes ago, xking said:

Why did Dreadfleet  fail? I was not around.

Dreadfleet was a one-time game box release by GW. They were upfront that there wouldn't be any expansions; any new fleets or new ships or any developing of the range. It was a one time all in one box game. They then produced way too much of it and it just didn't sell out like it should have. 

GW wanted a fast selling game, but because they were just throwing it out there without any further support many wargamer customers weren't interested. They didn't want 1 ship for their faction (if they were represented) and then nothing; they wanted Man O War - an actual wargame with their own factions fleet of ships. 

So it sold but nothing like the volume that GW were hoping for. This was also back in the days when GW wasn't doing any of their current advertising online nor building things up well. So they also likely made some mistakes there as well which stalled sales. 

[EccentricCircle]

I know that waiting a week for your preorder is preferable to waiting a couple of months, but since people wait for years for Kickstarter projects I can't see it being a deal breaker. The whole idea of something selling out in preorder is bizzare, the point of a preorder should be to estimate demand.

I also think they should limit sets tk one per person. That would cut out resellers, but also allow for more even distribution amongst legitimate customers. You often see posts from people who missed out interspersed with those from people who bought five copies of a limited set to start an army. 

[Still-young]

7 minutes ago, EccentricCircle said:

I know that waiting a week for your preorder is preferable to waiting a couple of months, but since people wait for years for Kickstarter projects I can't see it being a deal breaker. The whole idea of something selling out in preorder is bizzare, the point of a preorder should be to estimate demand.

I also think they should limit sets tk one per person. That would cut out resellers, but also allow for more even distribution amongst legitimate customers. You often see posts from people who missed out interspersed with those from people who bought five copies of a limited set to start an army. 

The Sisters box was 1 per person. 

[EccentricCircle]

1 minute ago, Still-young said:

The Sisters box was 1 per person. 

That's good to hear, even if it clearly hasn't worked as well as hoped!

[zilberfrid]

23 minutes ago, EccentricCircle said:

That's good to hear, even if it clearly hasn't worked as well as hoped!

That depends. From a business point of view, it might have.

Some may have suspected sets would not sell out if a one box per person wasn't implemented, and that bubble has popped.

This makes it more likely for GW to do it again.

[JackStreicher]

9 hours ago, Chikout said:

The story goes that Gorkamorka nearly killed gw. Gw took a big bet on it but it didn't sell. 

 

Why am I in doubt about that? It seems you extreamly overestimate production costs. GW hasn‘t been in any danger for 15 years? And they did better and better with hardly any setback after the old world exploded. (And they did worse before not due to overproduction while WHF existed but due to greedy and stupid pricing and release policies).

if they produce 10,000 copies of Gorkamorka for 140€ then their retailer price would be 70€ which means the actual production costs per unit would be around (Max) 30€ if they stick to the old rule of selling for 2.5x the production costs. Realistically the prod. Costs per unit would be somewhere around 15-20€.

selling half of it would therefor cover all their costs with ease. After that the revenue would explode. And that is not accounting for their online shop sales of which every sold box covers the prod. Costs of ~4.5 boxes.

Edited November 17, 2019 by JackStreicher

[alghero81]

8 hours ago, novakai said:

Well it just speculation and guessing of what it could be. Also Giants of Hysh is a bit an out of this world concept so not many people would except such a thing to happen.  hints of anything coming from Hysh has always been heavily related to the Twins and Aelves, though there are stuff like Order of knights, the Cypher lords, and  Grots who worship the sun, so anything is possible.

 

Yeah, not suggesting light giants but maybe some monster or giant construct in the realm of light. Aren’t the Sky Grots from Hysh for example?

A giant ship would fit the bill no?

Today they should announce the preorder of the battleforces right? Or I’m a week too early?

Edited November 17, 2019 by alghero81

[Kaleb Daark]

9 hours ago, alghero81 said:

They technically have it when they do the made to order. It could be a similar situation. Problem is these boxes have surely a much smaller margin and is not in their interest produce too many.

But the idea to limit one for address mentioned above is interesting.

They did this when end times came in fantasy.

each book was a maximum order quantity of one.

its all doable.  I wonder if this will have a counter effect (unlikely) and  put off potential sisters players from buying up the normal release models due to the fact they feel that not only have they missed out on the great bargain intro box but are now paying through the nose by comparison. Time will tell.

[alghero81]

34 minutes ago, Kaleb Daark said:

They did this when end times came in fantasy.

each book was a maximum order quantity of one.

its all doable.  I wonder if this will have a counter effect (unlikely) and  put off potential sisters players from buying up the normal release models due to the fact they feel that not only have they missed out on the great bargain intro box but are now paying through the nose by comparison. Time will tell.

My AoS group is small, most players do 40k but now out of 6 players 3 are starting Ossiarch Bonereapers, fair enough we all got the starting box but we also paid hundreds more for the other bits. Not much significative but I think if you want something you are going for it deal or no deal... not all start collecting boxes are good value, this does not mean no one starts the armies without them or with poor start collecting...