Rumours on low Dominion sales - discussion

[NinthMusketeer]

Sold a ton of boxes in my area. Thing is we got almost as much as Indomitus for a game with only a fraction of the popularity. I think at this point it is safe to say GW overestimated demand by not understanding the relative popularity between the two games and/or the space marine effect. Still, Dominion has sold multiple times as many boxes as Soul Wars, it has been a vastly more popular launch in my area. 

[Overread]

I think that's a key point - Dominion didn't sell out as much as 40K, but it has sold really well and better than Soul Wars. Also lets not forget Cruelboyz are new whilst Necrons and Marines of Indomitus are both established armies. Domion was harmed with the same thing as Indomitus with delays after release for the follow-on products. Fleshing out Cruelboyz with a Battletome and new models and such. Same thing happened with Indomitus, but in that case the Necrons already had a Codex, they already had long established fans and such.

Plus in AoS, Destruction has been the most neglected segment for quite a long while and the Orruks especially. So slightly lower sales on that side is expected; or if not expected at least tolerable. They also didn't have the fanatic fan service that Sisters of Battle had; however SoB also got a multiple releases in a row, front place marketing and a lot of other bonuses to marketing. They were pushed hard but were also fleshed out with a big range fast.

[RuneBrush]

2 hours ago, Overread said:

I think that's a key point - Dominion didn't sell out as much as 40K, but it has sold really well and better than Soul Wars. Also lets not forget Cruelboyz are new whilst Necrons and Marines of Indomitus are both established armies. Domion was harmed with the same thing as Indomitus with delays after release for the follow-on products. Fleshing out Cruelboyz with a Battletome and new models and such. Same thing happened with Indomitus, but in that case the Necrons already had a Codex, they already had long established fans and such.

Plus in AoS, Destruction has been the most neglected segment for quite a long while and the Orruks especially. So slightly lower sales on that side is expected; or if not expected at least tolerable. They also didn't have the fanatic fan service that Sisters of Battle had; however SoB also got a multiple releases in a row, front place marketing and a lot of other bonuses to marketing. They were pushed hard but were also fleshed out with a big range fast.

I also think it suffered because Kruleboyz are radically different to the Brian Nelson Orruk/Orc/Ork design.  Within my local group, the aesthetic is quite marmite

[SunStorm]

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

I also think it suffered because Kruleboyz are radically different to the Brian Nelson Orruk/Orc/Ork design.  Within my local group, the aesthetic is quite marmite

They also seem to be not the most beginner friendly to paint. Lots of fiddling detail on most of them and designed in ways that mean lots of hard to reach areas under cloaks, etc

In my opinion, other starter set armies like Marines, Stormcast, Necrons, Nighthaunt, have been much more friendly to a new player / novice painter. 

 

[Indecisive]

Strange, I like the KB more than the SCE half

[Overread]

18 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

I also think it suffered because Kruleboyz are radically different to the Brian Nelson Orruk/Orc/Ork design.  Within my local group, the aesthetic is quite marmite

To be honest that seems to happen a lot with the initial hype around a fair few AoS armies that are new. Ossiarchs are the same.

 

I think its a few things. First up both forces were dropped with very little build up in the lore. GW in their bid to avoid tipping their hand to 3rd parties means that they don't seed. It's not like adding Exodites, Cathay, Araby and such, but totally new forces that have "always been in the setting but no one spotted them until today" kind of thing. So there's very little initial seeding from GW to build up some hype. Heck they've actually done more with things like Spider Grots. 

Secondly a huge part of initial hype are Old World fans. Like it or not 30 years of selling and marketing one of the worlds biggest fantasy wargames on tabletop leaves its mark. Cruelboyz, Ossiarchs - they aren't Old World. If Ossiarchs had been Tomb Kings in all but name they'd have been leaped on even if they'd kept some of the designs like the harvester or catapult. 

Thirdly it might also be that because Cruelboyz are a bit like a Skaven clan in that they aren't their own army, there's a bit of a feeling that they aren't a "full" force of their own; but also that they aren't regular Orruks that people are already collecting. 

Finally lets not forget that Orks in general in AoS have been neglected. No terrain feature, no endless spells, no actual new models (until Cruelboyz which are a new design approach); removed one chunk of models. Yes Goblins got attention and Destruction got a new force in the Mega Gargants, but actual Orruks have been to the side for a while.

 

 

So there's a good few things that conspired together to perhaps lower the initial hype around them. That said I think the design is very very solid and I'm honestly more of a fan of them than any other Orruk/ork models GW has made in a long time. To me they are actually closer ot the design ethos of REALLY old Warhammer orks. Back when they were slightly less of the 40K style of football hooligans and much more a dark menacing force of evil straight out of the pages of Lord of the Rings. 

[NinthMusketeer]

Ironjawz were a whole line of new Orruks, and pretty popular at that. What I've seen lately is people getting into Destruction because they like the Kruleboyz plus existing players picking up new models as allies.

[Boingrot Bouncer]

To be honest I like the kruel boyz look better than the IJ which for me just look strange. If I had the time I would expand the box set to 2000 points but already have SCE, Gitz, SBGL and Lumineth and with family life you don't need 5 armies...

[Kasper]

Instead of Dominion selling poorly, couldnt it just be a case of GW overproducing boxes to ensure that supply could meet demand? Instead of risking another incident where they werent able to (Cursed City)?

In either case I only see this as a positive thing for us consumers - There are now a bunch of minis at a hefty discount which is awesome for new and current players alike.

[MarkK]

4 hours ago, Kasper said:

Instead of Dominion selling poorly, couldnt it just be a case of GW overproducing boxes to ensure that supply could meet demand? Instead of risking another incident where they werent able to (Cursed City)?

In either case I only see this as a positive thing for us consumers - There are now a bunch of minis at a hefty discount which is awesome for new and current players alike.

I bought Dominion from Wayland games at half price, the core book and basically 2 1000pt armies for 65 pounds was a massive deal and brought me into this edition. 

Even if I don't expand the Stormcast or Orruks to full armies, the variety of the miniatures will mean that they will find uses in loads of other games.

I'd recommend it to newer players if you can get it for a good deal; enough units for decent sized battles and the full size rulebook with art and lore. Good variety in the miniatures for new painters too.

[Kaleb Daark]

On 11/3/2021 at 3:34 PM, yukishiro1 said:

For stuff in the UK factory and warehouse, sure, I buy that, they're close together. But if you have to send an unsold box of X back halfway across the world to be melted down, the economics of that start to look quite different.

These days plastic is expensive enough that it might still be worth shipping unsold stuff back to the UK to be made into new stuff, but I doubt that was the case pre-plastic spikes, and I kinda doubt GW would have paid a premium back in the day to do that. But I obviously don't know for sure. 

the polymer structure changes.  You can't just melt it all down and put it back into the machine as if it was casting metal, it doesn't work like that.

GW  for a long time as many companies do, felt that sales and discounts devalued the brand.  You gave discounts in other ways such as start collecting etc. where you paid for 2 units and got the third effectively free.  Bundles are a way of hiding the fact you're discounting.

Now,  maybe someone has realised that actually people like an obvious bargain when they see one, and things like black friday et al. are the perfect vehicle to offer obvious discount without devaluing your brand because well, that's what those occasions are all about.  No point if all your going to do is bang on about it on your website and then customers look at it and see that everything is still full RRP.

 

As for dominion - I and a friend took advantage of the Weyland sales and now I have double cruelboyz, I'm really happy about that.  From one angle if they'd not made enough, then we'd have had the outcry. my gut feeling was that they wanted a massive production run  and there were lots left over as a result.  They weren't a flop, probably just lots to go round with spares to boot.  Add to that the fact that we all know what a tactile and visual hobby this is, the whole not being able to go into store and play with stuff and see it in the real has probably impacted all of the sales side of things in all aspects. (i'm leaving 40k way out of this in every way).

 

If it were me how would I do it?

If it's about lean production and manufacturing, you know what, I'd do it as a made to order  - its what some of the book publishers do. Invite a pre-order window say of a month., two weeks whatever.  The order then goes to the manufacturer and that number is made plus whatever margin for game stores etc.  Everyone who wanted one gets one, and shops all get what the ask for.  And you know that it all arrives in a month, two months, whatever.  The price for you actually getting one is the wait.  Everyone is happy, there's not warehouses full of surplus stock sitting there because the last time 90% of people that wanted it didn't get one.  if weyland etc feel that they can shift a ton more at christmas they can order them all upfront and hold them back, and that way they have stock and the manufacturer has the money in the bank.

[Overread]

GW are still cautious on sales. The risk for them is if they run regular sales on models then that does set a new baseline for the value of a product. It's why several video game companies were very angry at Epic games a year or two back when Epic did a big sale without telling the companies or asking permission. Now Epic footed the difference in price to the publishers so the customers got a sale and the publishers got the same profits as a full price sale; but it meant that a game which were £60 at launch, were now "seen" as being valued far lower at one point in time. Many customers who aren't around for the sale will then wait for the next sale and when the price comes down again. 

GW has an issue with that because their products might last 10 or more years in the market. They don't want customers waiting for a sale. At the same time I think they've slowly realised that things like vouchers can be used to generate sale conditions without devaluing specific products. Furthermore they do have a rough 10-25% range to play with on their own store because that's where the prices are in 3rd parties. So it doesn't devalue because anyone who wants those prices normally just goes through the 3rd party system. GW can still set those prices on their own store from time to time and still make more profit than going through 3rd parties. 

[Kodos der Henker]

3 hours ago, Kaleb Daark said:

the polymer structure changes.  You can't just melt it all down and put it back into the machine as if it was casting metal, it doesn't work like that

with Polystyrene you can do exactly that or do you think GW has their own chemical plant and does the polymerization in England?

they buy packs of solid chunks from China in the right colour and melt them to put into their machinery

[yukishiro1]

I have heard people say you can only reuse 80%, but even if so, that'd still allow you to recycle all the empty sprues that get sent back since that's comfortably less than 80% of the material of a new one. 

[Kaleb Daark]

3 hours ago, Kodos der Henker said:

with Polystyrene you can do exactly that or do you think GW has their own chemical plant and does the polymerization in England?

they buy packs of solid chunks from China in the right colour and melt them to put into their machinery

I’ll bow to your greater knowledge on that as you clearly are in the know.

[Kaleb Daark]

1 hour ago, yukishiro1 said:

I have heard people say you can only reuse 80%, but even if so, that'd still allow you to recycle all the empty sprues that get sent back since that's comfortably less than 80% of the material of a new one. 

I’d not listen to what people say as the man above your post has the facts.

[RuneBrush]

21 hours ago, Kodos der Henker said:

with Polystyrene you can do exactly that or do you think GW has their own chemical plant and does the polymerization in England?

they buy packs of solid chunks from China in the right colour and melt them to put into their machinery

Quite often plastics manufacturers get the raw material granule form because it takes less energy to melt 😊  - rather boringly I almost worked at a company that made plastic products when I left school.

[Overread]

I wonder if there's degradation of the plastic with repeat melting and moulding? Ergo its fine to do it once or twice, but repeated processes results in a poorer overall performance. Another issue might simply be that the hopper design can take pellets but not sprue so easily.

That said I do have some recollection that GW did try a recycling system through their stores but couldn't get efficient/cheap enough return transporting and sorting to make it work. It would be wonderful if they could sort something out and if material could go around again .

Sorting might be an issue, customers might apply glue and paints or other such things to the sprue that they return without thinking about it and suddenly you've got contamination in the mix. Or even plastics of a different formula from another firm being thrown in (because why not get rid of your plastics all at one spot). 

[Kaleb Daark]

4 hours ago, Overread said:

I wonder if there's degradation of the plastic with repeat melting and moulding? Ergo its fine to do it once or twice, but repeated processes results in a poorer overall performance. Another issue might simply be that the hopper design can take pellets but not sprue so easily.

That said I do have some recollection that GW did try a recycling system through their stores but couldn't get efficient/cheap enough return transporting and sorting to make it work. It would be wonderful if they could sort something out and if material could go around again .

Sorting might be an issue, customers might apply glue and paints or other such things to the sprue that they return without thinking about it and suddenly you've got contamination in the mix. Or even plastics of a different formula from another firm being thrown in (because why not get rid of your plastics all at one spot). 

thermocycling and post curing affects the polymer matrix and alters the properties each melt/cure  cycle.

To recycle the plastic you'd have to decontaminate the plastics and then grind them into the base pellet state they come in to allow them to feed properly into the injection moulding hopper. 

This is simplistic but helps to explain the process. About the only thing you have now is preheated moulds, as it increases the output rate and minimises shrinkage when the part cures, but you generally design with the shrinkage rate taken into account.

The linked videos also help to explain why they're loathed to update models unless there's a decent business case for it, a bit more complex than making silicon or rubber pour and centrifugal moulds for metals.

 

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Kaleb Daark

[Roland]

On 12/3/2021 at 1:14 AM, RuneBrush said:

I also think it suffered because Kruleboyz are radically different to the Brian Nelson Orruk/Orc/Ork design.  Within my local group, the aesthetic is quite marmite

 

One part Lord Of The Rings Orcs.

One part Labyrinth goblins.

A distinct choice for sure.
Yet was it the best choice for Warhammer?

 

As for all this talk of plastic.
It would be beneficial if GW added internal padding as it makes more elaborate & more detailed & thus more fragile miniatures.

Whether it's Nighthaunt or Kruleboyz.

Seems all too easy to find stressed or warped sprues these days.
Especially when thin & fragile unit sprues are placed right along side heavy terrain sprues. As is the case with new Kill Team box sets & such.

[PlasticCraic]

On 12/7/2021 at 10:33 PM, Overread said:

GW has an issue with that because their products might last 10 or more years in the market. They don't want customers waiting for a sale. At the same time I think they've slowly realised that things like vouchers can be used to generate sale conditions without devaluing specific products. Furthermore they do have a rough 10-25% range to play with on their own store because that's where the prices are in 3rd parties. So it doesn't devalue because anyone who wants those prices normally just goes through the 3rd party system. GW can still set those prices on their own store from time to time and still make more profit than going through 3rd parties. 

Yup, it's actually a really good business model - like you said, bundling and vouchers are a great workaround for sales.  I also notice the vouchers are usually 10% deals, which is at the very lowest end of discounting - which means they are not undermining their own distributors by going below them. 

The Start Collecting boxes and similar lines also go through the distribution network, so all in all it's a great solution for offering back door "sales" without devaluing the product, while also supporting your distributors.

[Dressedspring1]

On 12/8/2021 at 4:00 PM, Roland said:

 

One part Lord Of The Rings Orcs.

One part Labyrinth goblins.

A distinct choice for sure.
Yet was it the best choice for Warhammer?

 

As for all this talk of plastic.
It would be beneficial if GW added internal padding as it makes more elaborate & more detailed & thus more fragile miniatures.

Whether it's Nighthaunt or Kruleboyz.

Seems all too easy to find stressed or warped sprues these days.
Especially when thin & fragile unit sprues are placed right along side heavy terrain sprues. As is the case with new Kill Team box sets & such.

As someone who played nighthaunt as his first AoS army and dealt with snapped guardian of soul arms or other random bits breaking, I’d actually prefer they stopped designing models that were that fragile. Padding between sprues for transport doesn’t help the issue of things breaking when you actually play games with them

[Bosskelot]

Apologies for dredging this up and at this point there's probably not much more to be said, but at Adepticon they had a gargantuan pile of Dominion boxes they were handing out for free to ticket holders.

GW 100% overproduced it.

[Baron Klatz]

And nothing but good can come from that for the hobby. Better too much(and still sold amazingly) so everyone gets it than not enough and scalpers having their way.

The world needs all the angels it can get.  

Happy for those ticket holders, what an awesome prize!

[RuneBrush]

3 hours ago, Bosskelot said:

Apologies for dredging this up and at this point there's probably not much more to be said, but at Adepticon they had a gargantuan pile of Dominion boxes they were handing out for free to ticket holders.

GW 100% overproduced it.

Could you clarify ticket holders - is this some kind of Adepticon ticket holder or was it a special type of ticket (e.g. you're a WH+ subscriber).