EccentricCircle

Given that they are winding down resin and metal production for Age of Sigmar and 40K, I'd think that made to order can't be that disruptive. I've speculated that it might actually be conceived as a way to get more use out of metal casting machines which would otherwise go idle, as they probably have gaps between needing to produce new batches of metal Lord of the Rings stuff these days. Its impossible to know for sure, but you don't see the metal stuff go out of stock with nearly the same regularity that the plastic does! I'd definitely appreciate more advanced notice. If they published a schedule of when different things would go to made for order then it would be possible to save up for particularly interesting runs. As it stands there is too little notice for that to really be feasible, and its easy to miss out, even if you don't miss the announcement outright, which has happened to me more than once, including the time they did do the old Daemonettes. (I think because it was allegedly a 40K run it didn't come to my attention until too late.)

Nice. My European themed freeguild consists of mostly old Empire pike and shot men, greatswords and cannon, mixed with Bretonnian Archers. My knights have a mix of bretonnian and Empire riders on Bretonnian horses. Plus a gondorian trebuchet for good measure.

I'm interested to hear what everyone's thoughts on the Made to Order initiative are, now that we're getting a solid stream of them on what feels like a monthly basis. On the one hand I think its great that GW are bringing back their cool old models, however fleetingly. Its given me the chance to get a few bits which I never would have dreamed I'd be able to add to my collection. As a fan of older sculpts its nice to see those in circulation again, and there are a few things I'd definitely like to see them do. On the other hand... the one week pre-order is massively frustrating. It is absolutely a "Fear of Missing Out" marketing strategy, of the most blatant sort. If you don't happen to be able to get the Made to Order at the exact moment it comes out then you are stuck. I've also found that they increasingly put too much up at a time. There were some, like the big Beasts of Chaos run, and some of the Lord of the Rings ones, where I would have happily ordered everything if it hadn't all been at once, but there was simply no way I could afford to do so. In some ways the more varied runs have been better. If there are a couple of things from four or five different factions then you can more easily afford the ones you are collecting, whereas if everything is from the same theme, then you can't get them all. On a few occasions I've looked at a made to order selection, and thought "oh good, I already have all those" So what do we all think? How many people actually go for them? Who would rather they were more spread out, or structured differently? Does the chance to get rare models outweigh the problems of being forced to get them there and then or miss out?

Yeah, that is steep. Mind you theres nothing that actually says that a freeguild army has to be in the Imperial style, rather than the Bretonnian style.

Yeah, that one will be tough. Unbuilt plastics are much harder to find, and right now there are bound to be loads of Empire enthusiasts trying to track some down. Back when Tomb Kings were discontinued I was in the same position of trying to find a box of Tomb Guard. I had a set with swords, but wanted to have both weapon options going forwards. I couldn't find a new kit at a reasonable price, and couldn't find any already built ones with the right weapons. In the end I had to get some with a mix, and take them apart and rebuild them using my spares. It cost more than I would have liked, but I was willing to splash out a bit to make my army apocalypse proof. You might see sets of empire archers come down in price a bit once the chaos of the squatting blows over, but finding unused sprues gets harder the longer you go on. When I wrote my first post I was mainly thinking about older metal models, which tend to be easier to get in good condition. So long as all the pieces are there, they can fairly readily be stripped, or rebuilt and repaired. Plastics don't hold up as well, and the more affordable ones tend to have been assembled by drunk chimpanzees who had no idea how a model was supposed to go together. I have some high elf spearmen who came with something, and they so wonky and badly painted that I've never quite been able to bring myself to do anything with them. I forget what else I got in that bundle, but the High elves certainly didn't add anything to its value. Conversely I've had great luck putting together 90's era chaos dwarf and lizardmen armies. Most of the models are metal, with just a few fairly monopose plastics. The bigger warmachines and beasts were a bit pricey, but I bided my time and got a few good deals on them. I've also been able to collect all the different coloured battlemages, which was a much easier project, since it was all character models, and so it was just a case of finding affordable offers where the staffs were either intact or repairable. Trying to get multi part plastic kits though is always going to be more of a challenge, unless they are something like old battle line troops which were just sold in such numbers for such a long time that unused sprues still circulate.

Ebay can be very touch and go in my experience. Contested auctions can become crazy, but there is a lot of stuff just waiting for someone to "buy it now", and when you get an uncontested auction there can be some very good deals. I think sometimes we (and sellers" assume that because things are rare, that means that there will be more of a demand for them than there actually is. All the sellers with super rare stuff keep listing it at insane prices, but i've not seen much evidence that anyone actually pays those prices, at least not often. If you plan your budget accordingly, it can be fairly easy to get oop models. I'd say that they can be as cheap as building an equivalent new army if you play your cards right, although the scale of the models will obviously be smaller, even if you are paying the same price as the newer, bigger version!

My family will no longer buy me any more D&D books, but they still seem happy to provide me with more miniatures. Maybe they don't realise quite how many I still need to paint.

Yeah, that's what I usually do.

I'm mainly a D&D player, and it has the definite advantage that you need a diverse range of modes rather than lots of repetition of battle line troops. I love just being able to get a box of goblins, and basically have all the goblins I'm ever likely to need! I've ended up with a much more varied collection than if I'd just stuck with an army, and over the decades I've ended up gradually building several full armies from that foundation of miscellaneous models.

Makes sense. I have a birthday in early December so i know in previous years I've found they come out a little too late to put them on my wish list.

That is actually pretty awesome! Must have been a tiny speaker.

When do they typically announce them? I know they don't come out until the middle of December, so November time reveal?

I'm a bit suspicious of this rumour. Wargames Factory ltd is a small American company that manufactures 28mm models. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wargames_Factory Which does not seem to have any link to GW. A little googling suggests that they do seem to have factories in China, but do we know that they are actually the company GW outsources their Chinese production to? I'd always understood it as a Chinese factory, rahter than the factories of another Wargames company, although I have no actual information on that. It seems slightly odd that they would work with one of their smaller US competitors when outsourcing their production. There's also the fact that GW is listed as "Games Workshop USA" after all, their central offices are in the UK, not the US. Shouldn't such a communique thus come from head office, and then the units be shipped out to the US? Its hard to get a sense of whehter the numbers seem reasonable for US side sales, but a lot about it just seems a little bit off to me?

I'd love to get a few of the older wood elf models. Ariel, Orion, some of the lords, like the one on a giant stag. For empire models the engineer on mechanical horse would be awesome, as would the old halflings (I picked up the hot pot the other month, so there is precedent for that!) I'd love to get a lot of the older dwarven thane models, and some of their classic engineers, but most of all I would love Malakai Makaisson's Gobline Hewer, its such an awesome model, and such a classic element of the dwarfs lore! Really the sky is the limit when it comes to old dwarf models. They are such a characterful range, that everything looks cool. And on the non Order front I'm of course still waiting for them to do Ushabti, so that I can grab a few more of them for my Tomb Kings.

True, but Ogroid just means "Like an Ogre" thus Fomoriod could well be read to mean "Like a Fimir/Formorian"

Interesting to see GW being much more up front about phasing out their metal Sisters of Battle range. They've just announced the date they are stopping selling them, and the date after which they are ceasing production, and so stocks may start running out. Can we hope that they've learnt something from the disastrous (for us, if not them) Cities of Sigmar squattings?

Ironically what you are describing was kind of its greatest strength as a wargames setting. At face value it had most of what you expect from a standard fantasy setting, which made it very accessible. It was only once you dug into the lore, and started reading the army books and RPG supplements that you find out what all the fuss is about. It had a depth of lore, and some stuff that really made it stand out, but that didn't get in the way of doing the "tolkien rip off" type games if that was what you wanted, or the only thing you were expecting. The fact that all the factions hated each other was quite deliberate, since it makes it much easier to justify why anyone would fight anyone else, even if they happened to be from two "order" factions, or even both be empire armies.

I have one of those, they are really great! Day light bulbs generally are a good idea, both for SAD purposes and for good light while painting!

I'm very envious of the Warcry terrain. I love painting up that sort of thing, as I find it much easier than regular minis for some reason. I generally play stuff like Frostgrave and D&D more than actual warhammer, so tend to have a different baseline of what set ups should look like. What people call a crowded game for warhammer looks like about the minimum I'd use for a frostgrave table (albeit over a smaller area).

I had wondered if we'd be getting another Realm of Chaos box. They've done Khorne vs Slaanesh, so now Nurgle vs Tzeentch is the obvious next step.

Mind you warcry has already given use chaos worshipping dwarves, aelves and ogres, so just because this particular formorian is a chaos cultist doesn't mean they all will be.

After spending the better part of a month trying to do all the fiddly detail which completely covers every Kharadron Overlords model, its surprisingly relaxing to be painting Night Goblins again! The only slight concern is that my Squig skin recipe is a bit reliant on GW red ink, which they've not made for a decade. Hopefully I'll have enough...

Eh, I wouldn't be worried about Marvel writers not getting the tone of Warhammer. It will almost certainly be Dan Abnett, who happens to be both a respected comics writer, working for Marvel, and the guy who writes half the Black Library novels.

True, it just seems weird that they'd let it sell out, when they are quite capable of printing more copies (and indeed are still making everything in the box separately). I've never quite understood GW's attitude to these sorts of box sets. Edit: With the Marvel news: Could we finally see Hero Man comics?

Well, I won't be getting warcry for Christmas then... It seems like an odd idea to pull a major starter set just before the holiday season, but hey ho, its not as though there's much of a chance of actually getting to play it anyway.