How is it possible for a company to fail so badly?

4 months into the edition - they know that demand for models when a new codex comes out is higher than it has ever been. Yet - still - out of stock for all the best models 5 weeks after release. I am just dumbfounded. Was it like this for the other armies?

Look at this guy, he clearly knows the entirety and complexity of plastic injecting. He obviously knows that the new, bigger factory GW was using for plastic models had it's power disrupted by government construction work, and that the smaller, older factory is working flat out and unable to keep up to the heightened demand caused by the most successful edition of Warhammer 40,000 yet.

At least, that's the reason I was told (the power cut thing).

This is normal with each codex release. People are buying 2000, 3000 point armies straight fro the webstore as soon as the codex reelases.

GW tries to keep stock, but the US distribution centers are already under load from the FLGS distributors that need to be supplied too.

I'm not certain they could stock enough to handle the load - even if they told your local store to shove it and sell magic cards instead.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be fair, we do feel your pain. I want some of those Dark Angels jetfighters, but they'd been blitzed out of existence everywhere.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
This is normal with each codex release. People are buying 2000, 3000 point armies straight fro the webstore as soon as the codex reelases.

GW tries to keep stock, but the US distribution centers are already under load from the FLGS distributors that need to be supplied too.

I'm not certain they could stock enough to handle the load - even if they told your local store to shove it and sell magic cards instead.

Out of stock on the web-store for 5 consecutive weeks. The stores can't even get the stuff. They just aren't making the kits.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
This is normal with each codex release. People are buying 2000, 3000 point armies straight fro the webstore as soon as the codex reelases.

GW tries to keep stock, but the US distribution centers are already under load from the FLGS distributors that need to be supplied too.

I'm not certain they could stock enough to handle the load - even if they told your local store to shove it and sell magic cards instead.

Out of stock on the web-store for 5 consecutive weeks. The stores can't even get the stuff. They just aren't making the kits.

They aren't making the kits because they don't want to, they aren't making the kits because they literally cannot.

Their actual manufacturing process has been disrupted because of construction at their main facility that isn't under their control. There isn't enough actual power to run at full capacity at their main location - they are unable to produce at a normal rate.

It isn't that they're willfully not producing the kits, they physically cannot. They are a vertically integrated company that cannot outsource their manufacturing to account for production delays.All of their injection molding, machinery, etc. is proprietary so if they can't produce (which they cannot right now because their larger facility is suffering a brown out) it then no one can.

May I suggest a Hive Fleet name for you: "Queribundus Queribundica"

No, it's not actually Latin, but it does shorten nicely to, "QQ".

DCannon4Life wrote:
May I suggest a Hive Fleet name for you: "Queribundus Queribundica"

No, it's not actually Latin, but it does shorten nicely to, "QQ".

That gave me a chuckle.

From the sounds of it reading from an article - they are down 3 injections machines. They have 12 functional. There are also these things called generators that could get the other 3 machines running...but...I'm not sure they thought of that. Plus - preparation is how you handle this kind of thing. You don't produce the kits after the release of the codex - you produce them well in advance. In any case - it's still unacceptable that they can't meet tyranid demand 5 weeks after release...


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 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Their actual manufacturing process has been disrupted because of construction at their main facility that isn't under their control. There isn't enough actual power to run at full capacity at their main location - they are unable to produce at a normal rate.

It isn't that they're willfully not producing the kits, they physically cannot. They are a vertically integrated company that cannot outsource their manufacturing to account for production delays.All of their injection molding, machinery, etc. is proprietary so if they can't produce (which they cannot right now because their larger facility is suffering a brown out) it then no one can.

So their entire main facility is not producing models?

Yeah you know generators to run injection molding machines are readily available, fuel costs are a non issue, zoning allows their use I'm sure. Also you do understand they cannot, responsibly, wildly over produce prior to a launch because if they miss their projection mark they'll have inventory on hand that is taxable right? You talk a lot about this whole thing but I'm beginning to think you don't actually understand much about the business of injection molding or the general business of manufacturing.

I guarantee you that GW isn't pleased with the loss of production capacity and I'm willing to bet large sums of money that they're running through every option they have to get back up to speed but it isn't so simple as to buy a few generators and toss them in the main plant nor is it so easy to just produce a full year's worth or inventory in preparation for a release. But you aren't interested in any of that I'm sure - given that its you, you'll assume you know best. Let me leave you with this - this isn't a simple puzzle to solve, a lot more goes into it than you seem to know.

I'm with Xenomancers here -- how many times have we seen space marine models go out of stock? Again, it's a self-perpetuating problem. If GW is producing Primaris batch #347, the molds for Carnifex batch #6 aren't even being utilized. How many ways can I buy a Primaris Intercessor? Well, you've got the various boxed game versions, you've got the easy-to-build versions, and you've got codex, BA, and DA versions. As a person with mostly Xenos armies, yes, this makes me more than a little salty, and I don't think that's unreasonable.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Yeah you know generators to run injection molding machines are readily available, fuel costs are a non issue, zoning allows their use I'm sure. Also you do understand they cannot, responsibly, wildly over produce prior to a launch because if they miss their projection mark they'll have inventory on hand that is taxable right? You talk a lot about this whole thing but I'm beginning to think you don't actually understand much about the business of injection molding or the general business of manufacturing.

I guarantee you that GW isn't pleased with the loss of production capacity and I'm willing to bet large sums of money that they're running through every option they have to get back up to speed but it isn't so simple as to buy a few generators and toss them in the main plant nor is it so easy to just produce a full year's worth or inventory in preparation for a release. But you aren't interested in any of that I'm sure - given that its you, you'll assume you know best. Let me leave you with this - this isn't a simple puzzle to solve, a lot more goes into it than you seem to know.

Don't worry, he always knows better than everyone else about everything. /s

Normally I'd make a prodding joke about Dunning-Kruger, but this attitude starts becoming really toxic after a while. Just angry post after angry post.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Yeah you know generators to run injection molding machines are readily available, fuel costs are a non issue, zoning allows their use I'm sure. Also you do understand they cannot, responsibly, wildly over produce prior to a launch because if they miss their projection mark they'll have inventory on hand that is taxable right? You talk a lot about this whole thing but I'm beginning to think you don't actually understand much about the business of injection molding or the general business of manufacturing.

I guarantee you that GW isn't pleased with the loss of production capacity and I'm willing to bet large sums of money that they're running through every option they have to get back up to speed but it isn't so simple as to buy a few generators and toss them in the main plant nor is it so easy to just produce a full year's worth or inventory in preparation for a release. But you aren't interested in any of that I'm sure - given that its you, you'll assume you know best. Let me leave you with this - this isn't a simple puzzle to solve, a lot more goes into it than you seem to know.

These are easy problems to solve actually...actually having product available to sell is basically rule number 1 of business. They should have expected 8th edition would be as popular as it is. They had a full 6 months (or more) to prepare and stock up...it is - indefensible and it's costing them money. Good companies don't let money slip away from them.

News flash! GW uses normal manufacturing predictive methodology to determine which SKUs to produce in what numbers.

Holy hell what a stupid conspiracy theory. Do you know why they've got SMs in stock and not Xenos? SMs sell so they produce a higher number of the kits pre-launch based on existing data. It isn't some attempt to slight xenos players (I exclusively play Eldar here) - it is the nature of predicting excepted stock turn over (which is a sound business practice).

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Yeah you know generators to run injection molding machines are readily available, fuel costs are a non issue, zoning allows their use I'm sure. Also you do understand they cannot, responsibly, wildly over produce prior to a launch because if they miss their projection mark they'll have inventory on hand that is taxable right? You talk a lot about this whole thing but I'm beginning to think you don't actually understand much about the business of injection molding or the general business of manufacturing.

I guarantee you that GW isn't pleased with the loss of production capacity and I'm willing to bet large sums of money that they're running through every option they have to get back up to speed but it isn't so simple as to buy a few generators and toss them in the main plant nor is it so easy to just produce a full year's worth or inventory in preparation for a release. But you aren't interested in any of that I'm sure - given that its you, you'll assume you know best. Let me leave you with this - this isn't a simple puzzle to solve, a lot more goes into it than you seem to know.

Don't worry, he always knows better than everyone else about everything. /s

Normally I'd make a prodding joke about Dunning-Kruger, but this attitude starts becoming really toxic after a while. Just angry post after angry post.

I'm pretty sure at this point that you and farseer are the same person. Literally just follow me around trolling me with posts within a few minutes of each other. Could be a coincidence but I don't think so. I'm 100% right here...Companies that can not meet demand on their own release schedule (which they made themselves) are considered incompetent in literally any other consumer situation. GW fans boys I can see defending them but this is just ridicules. To be out of stock for 5 weeks - it is clear they are just making other things like...snap tite aggressors (don't need glue).

 Xenomancers wrote:

These are easy problems to solve actually...actually having product available to sell is basically rule number 1 of business. They should have expected 8th edition would be as popular as it is. They had a full 6 months (or more) to prepare and stock up...it is - indefensible and it's costing them money. Good companies don't let money slip away from them.

So tell me how many years have you spent running an injection facility? How many years have you spent in product management and store set? You have no idea what you're talking about here because you simply don't understand the basic business in play here. Sure in an ideal world every company at all times keeps stock levels ramped to holiday levels, that world doesn't exist though. See the video game console industry, see the high end specialty car industry - it isn't easy to perfectly predict demand against supply. Also let me ask again - do you understand how having excess stock on hand works for a company?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Yeah you know generators to run injection molding machines are readily available, fuel costs are a non issue, zoning allows their use I'm sure. Also you do understand they cannot, responsibly, wildly over produce prior to a launch because if they miss their projection mark they'll have inventory on hand that is taxable right? You talk a lot about this whole thing but I'm beginning to think you don't actually understand much about the business of injection molding or the general business of manufacturing.

I guarantee you that GW isn't pleased with the loss of production capacity and I'm willing to bet large sums of money that they're running through every option they have to get back up to speed but it isn't so simple as to buy a few generators and toss them in the main plant nor is it so easy to just produce a full year's worth or inventory in preparation for a release. But you aren't interested in any of that I'm sure - given that its you, you'll assume you know best. Let me leave you with this - this isn't a simple puzzle to solve, a lot more goes into it than you seem to know.

Don't worry, he always knows better than everyone else about everything. /s

Normally I'd make a prodding joke about Dunning-Kruger, but this attitude starts becoming really toxic after a while. Just angry post after angry post.

I'm pretty sure at this point that you and farseer are the same person. Literally just follow me around trolling me with posts within a few minutes of each other. Could be a coincidence but I don't think so. I'm 100% right here...Companies that can not meet demand on their own release schedule (which they made themselves) are considered incompetent in literally any other consumer situation. GW fans boys I can see defending them but this is just ridicules. To be out of stock for 5 weeks - it is clear they are just making other things like...snap tite aggressors (don't need glue).

Yes Games Workshop - literally identified as one of the best possible stocks to own in the British market is incompetent. Oh wait - maybe you just know as much as you think you do? But of course not, you're Xenomancers right about everything, incapable of error.

Oh, another Xenomancers hyperbole thread.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Oh, another Xenomancers hyperbole thread.

Be careful, or he'll think you're the same person, too. Paranoia will destroy ya.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:


Yes Games Workshop - literally identified as one of the best possible stocks to own in the British market is incompetent.

without wanting to comment on anything else in this thread as I generally agree with most of it (manufacturing and retail is complicated and hard), GW has a long history of irrational and disastrous business decisions that could be called incompetent.

They're generally very nice to their stockholders, but thats because their CEO and chairman (Kirby) was their like #5 shareholder and derived much of his income that way, and GW would do things like borrow money, putting themselves in the red, to pay dividends, which happened to double Kirby's income. Their years of practically adversarial customer relations, massive mishandling of social media and legal challenges to competitors, copycats and stuff like suing over the term "space marine", the entirety of 6E and 7E and loss of market share for the first time in a generation, Finecast, etc, calling GW incompetent, at least in certain respects, is not unwarranted, intertia has been their greatest friend the last 20 years, not innovation and foresight.

GW is having production issues that will not be resolved until their building can have its electrical work upgraded, which will not happen until after the new year.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:


Yes Games Workshop - literally identified as one of the best possible stocks to own in the British market is incompetent.

without wanting to comment on anything else in this thread as I generally agree with most of it (manufacturing and retail is complicated and hard), GW has a long history of irrational and disastrous business decisions that could be called incompetent.

They're generally very nice to their stockholders, but thats because their CEO and chairman (Kirby) was their like #5 shareholder and derived much of his income that way, and GW would do things like borrow money, putting themselves in the red, to pay dividends, which happened to double Kirby's income. Their years of practically adversarial customer relations, massive mishandling of social media and legal challenges to competitors, copycats and stuff like suing over the term "space marine", the entirety of 6E and 7E and loss of market share for the first time in a generation, Finecast, etc, calling GW incompetent, at least in certain respects, is not unwarranted, intertia has been their greatest friend the last 20 years, not innovation and foresight.

And all of this matters now given that Kirby no longer even has an advisory role with the company? Or is relevant given the article that named them as such was published less than a year ago under the Rountree era? Or has any veracity given the consistent growth in performance since 2015 when the change over occurred? Yes I'm being snarky but its to prove a point - GW is doing very well right now reporting one of their best fiscal years in recent memory with high dividends and constant growth, none of which have anything to do with their previous management or are even reflective of that as opposed to the growth shown under Rountree.

Hell, I don't think ork wierdboyz have been for sale since 8th dropped. Like, at all. You can't find them on ebay, amazon, or any physical store I've visited.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:


Yes Games Workshop - literally identified as one of the best possible stocks to own in the British market is incompetent.

without wanting to comment on anything else in this thread as I generally agree with most of it (manufacturing and retail is complicated and hard), GW has a long history of irrational and disastrous business decisions that could be called incompetent.

They're generally very nice to their stockholders, but thats because their CEO and chairman (Kirby) was their like #5 shareholder and derived much of his income that way, and GW would do things like borrow money, putting themselves in the red, to pay dividends, which happened to double Kirby's income. Their years of practically adversarial customer relations, massive mishandling of social media and legal challenges to competitors, copycats and stuff like suing over the term "space marine", the entirety of 6E and 7E and loss of market share for the first time in a generation, Finecast, etc, calling GW incompetent, at least in certain respects, is not unwarranted, intertia has been their greatest friend the last 20 years, not innovation and foresight.

And all of this matters now given that Kirby no longer even has an advisory role with the company? Or is relevant given the article that named them as such was published less than a year ago under the Rountree era? Or has any veracity given the consistent growth in performance since 2015 when the change over occurred? Yes I'm being snarky but its to prove a point - GW is doing very well right now reporting one of their best fiscal years in recent memory with high dividends and constant growth, none of which have anything to do with their previous management or are even reflective of that as opposed to the growth shown under Rountree.

GW has been doing well for a very short time period, and were at some of their worst just before that. Limited data set and low hanging fruit. They've stopped digging down, but they've got a long way to go still, with a loooong track record of poor choices spanning many years and many are not all that old by any means.

Again, I totally agree with the comments about manufacturing and supply issues and all that, but lets avoid setting up GW as a paragon of business competency just yet. We've seen GW try to turn things around before only to crash and burn so to speak, though yes they're better than they were a year ago.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
News flash! GW uses normal manufacturing predictive methodology to determine which SKUs to produce in what numbers.

Holy hell what a stupid conspiracy theory. Do you know why they've got SMs in stock and not Xenos? SMs sell so they produce a higher number of the kits pre-launch based on existing data. It isn't some attempt to slight xenos players (I exclusively play Eldar here) - it is the nature of predicting excepted stock turn over (which is a sound business practice).

Lol, predictive methodology sounds like something a tech savvy company would use, not an old-timer operation like GW. You've got to be kidding me if you don't think GW has pushed marines to the detriment of other factions. Heck, release a Xenos kit to get the loud whiners on FB and other platforms to shut up! Even if the sales numbers say people buy marines (which yeah, they certainly do, I'm not arguing that), it makes you look bad when people whine (justifiably!) about how they can't buy the Xenos kits. Sure, GW is doing pretty well these days. But I think they could improve sales and goodwill by sharing the love a little bit.

It's just reboxing. You can still order it from your FLGS through the distributor.

My girlfriend got me a ton of genestealers for xmas.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
News flash! GW uses normal manufacturing predictive methodology to determine which SKUs to produce in what numbers.

Holy hell what a stupid conspiracy theory. Do you know why they've got SMs in stock and not Xenos? SMs sell so they produce a higher number of the kits pre-launch based on existing data. It isn't some attempt to slight xenos players (I exclusively play Eldar here) - it is the nature of predicting excepted stock turn over (which is a sound business practice).

Lol, predictive methodology sounds like something a tech savvy company would use, not an old-timer operation like GW. You've got to be kidding me if you don't think GW has pushed marines to the detriment of other factions. Heck, release a Xenos kit to get the loud whiners on FB and other platforms to shut up! Even if the sales numbers say people buy marines (which yeah, they certainly do, I'm not arguing that), it makes you look bad when people whine (justifiably!) about how they can't buy the Xenos kits. Sure, GW is doing pretty well these days. But I think they could improve sales and goodwill by sharing the love a little bit.

I can source their predictive methodology by virtue of having worked for GW in a manufacturing support role for almost 9 years (no longer employed). GW is a business who produces what sells and what sells more than anything else is Space Marines so when you're forecasting a release you are going to produce SM kits at a much higher volume with better back stock (because of turn over vs. lead time) because you can have faith that come inventory time you aren't going to be sitting on excess product. Forecasting for production, especially during a new release is very difficult because you have to rely on previous similar scenarios to set quantities - it is an inexact science at best and one that can be cripplingly expensive if you get it wrong from a tax on physical inventory stand point. And even if they'd predicted perfectly you cannot account for a significant loss in production capacity such as losing actual power for a long period of time. You run the machines and you produce the SKUs that move and when you get a break you catch up on the slower SKUs - that's simply how the manufacturing business works, I always have to pay the bills before I catch up on the lower end movers.

There is no sharing the love - there is finding the best possible way to operate using the currently available production capacity to generate the most revenue as possible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
It's just reboxing. You can still order it from your FLGS through the distributor.

My girlfriend got me a ton of genestealers for xmas.

Depends on who the distributor is. For many stores the distributor is GW, some stores still stock through Alliance who may have some back order they're sitting on.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
News flash! GW uses normal manufacturing predictive methodology to determine which SKUs to produce in what numbers.

Holy hell what a stupid conspiracy theory. Do you know why they've got SMs in stock and not Xenos? SMs sell so they produce a higher number of the kits pre-launch based on existing data. It isn't some attempt to slight xenos players (I exclusively play Eldar here) - it is the nature of predicting excepted stock turn over (which is a sound business practice).

Lol, predictive methodology sounds like something a tech savvy company would use, not an old-timer operation like GW. You've got to be kidding me if you don't think GW has pushed marines to the detriment of other factions. Heck, release a Xenos kit to get the loud whiners on FB and other platforms to shut up! Even if the sales numbers say people buy marines (which yeah, they certainly do, I'm not arguing that), it makes you look bad when people whine (justifiably!) about how they can't buy the Xenos kits. Sure, GW is doing pretty well these days. But I think they could improve sales and goodwill by sharing the love a little bit.

I can source their predictive methodology by virtue of having worked for GW in a manufacturing support role for almost 9 years (no longer employed). GW is a business who produces what sells and what sells more than anything else is Space Marines so when you're forecasting a release you are going to produce SM kits at a much higher volume with better back stock (because of turn over vs. lead time) because you can have faith that come inventory time you aren't going to be sitting on excess product. Forecasting for production, especially during a new release is very difficult because you have to rely on previous similar scenarios to set quantities - it is an inexact science at best and one that can be cripplingly expensive if you get it wrong from a tax on physical inventory stand point. And even if they'd predicted perfectly you cannot account for a significant loss in production capacity such as losing actual power for a long period of time. You run the machines and you produce the SKUs that move and when you get a break you catch up on the slower SKUs - that's simply how the manufacturing business works, I always have to pay the bills before I catch up on the lower end movers.

There is no sharing the love - there is finding the best possible way to operate using the currently available production capacity to generate the most revenue as possible.

Fair enough -- thanks for the insight. As a Xenos player, this fact frustrates me, but it makes sense why this is GW's SOP.

 Marmatag wrote:
It's just reboxing. You can still order it from your FLGS through the distributor.

My girlfriend got me a ton of genestealers for xmas.

Geenstealers havn't been out of stock anytime I have looked at the nid kits online. Tried to order from a GW store but they just use the online system to make their special orders. Are you saying that if I went to a non GW store and had the owner order from the distributer they would be able to get me carnifex?

I love the conspiracy theory that GW are pushing SM to the detriment of other factions. All of those SM fanboys at GW HQ making irrational business decisions just to push their favorite faction. Can't they see that if they just release more eldar models they will sell like hotcakes?

 Xenomancers wrote:
How is it possible for a company to fail so badly?

Failing so badly, that there is literally waiting lists for their product, because demand is so high? Amazing stock performance... Unparalleled popularity... yeah, they are failing terribly. Go back to complaining about Space Marines.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
News flash! GW uses normal manufacturing predictive methodology to determine which SKUs to produce in what numbers.

Holy hell what a stupid conspiracy theory. Do you know why they've got SMs in stock and not Xenos? SMs sell so they produce a higher number of the kits pre-launch based on existing data. It isn't some attempt to slight xenos players (I exclusively play Eldar here) - it is the nature of predicting excepted stock turn over (which is a sound business practice).

Lol, predictive methodology sounds like something a tech savvy company would use, not an old-timer operation like GW. You've got to be kidding me if you don't think GW has pushed marines to the detriment of other factions. Heck, release a Xenos kit to get the loud whiners on FB and other platforms to shut up! Even if the sales numbers say people buy marines (which yeah, they certainly do, I'm not arguing that), it makes you look bad when people whine (justifiably!) about how they can't buy the Xenos kits. Sure, GW is doing pretty well these days. But I think they could improve sales and goodwill by sharing the love a little bit.

I can source their predictive methodology by virtue of having worked for GW in a manufacturing support role for almost 9 years (no longer employed). GW is a business who produces what sells and what sells more than anything else is Space Marines so when you're forecasting a release you are going to produce SM kits at a much higher volume with better back stock (because of turn over vs. lead time) because you can have faith that come inventory time you aren't going to be sitting on excess product. Forecasting for production, especially during a new release is very difficult because you have to rely on previous similar scenarios to set quantities - it is an inexact science at best and one that can be cripplingly expensive if you get it wrong from a tax on physical inventory stand point. And even if they'd predicted perfectly you cannot account for a significant loss in production capacity such as losing actual power for a long period of time. You run the machines and you produce the SKUs that move and when you get a break you catch up on the slower SKUs - that's simply how the manufacturing business works, I always have to pay the bills before I catch up on the lower end movers.

There is no sharing the love - there is finding the best possible way to operate using the currently available production capacity to generate the most revenue as possible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
It's just reboxing. You can still order it from your FLGS through the distributor.

My girlfriend got me a ton of genestealers for xmas.

Depends on who the distributor is. For many stores the distributor is GW, some stores still stock through Alliance who may have some back order they're sitting on.

I'll help you with the exact science. If you produced 5000 carnifex kits. They would sell practically overnight.

No retailer enjoys leaving money on the table. It's been documented there is a capacity issue due to the runaway success of a bunch of lines and a Heavy release schedule. If GW could keep everything in stock they would as they know they're losing cash, ergo they clearly cannot and have production capacity issues.

If they just said "screw it make 5,000 Exocrines" for example, they'd be unable to make something else. I've worked as a buyer for businesses with cash flow shortages and it's very similar... you do your best to manage the situation knowing you can't get a perfect result, knowing you're leaving shelves unstocked and losing sales, but trying to make a fist of it.

It's a sucky situation and I'd imagine they're doing all they can to turn it around.

sossen wrote:
I love the conspiracy theory that GW are pushing SM to the detriment of other factions. All of those SM fanboys at GW HQ making irrational business decisions just to push their favorite faction. Can't they see that if they just release more eldar models they will sell like hotcakes?

No one's calling this an irrational business decision, but just look at what happened with Canoness Viridian last year: selling "beyond our wildest expectations". If you don't think that indicates that GW was somewhat out of touch as to what the customers want ("was" mostly being the operative word there), then you're the conspiracy theorist here.

They're just now doing market research -- my hope is that their market research, like the community engagement survey, indicates that there's more of a love for certain factions than GW realizes, and they make new kits and up production for those factions. If it shows that GW is making the exact right number of Space Marines, that's fine too; at least the effort was put forth.

What are people worried about having inventory on hand? Plastic models aren't particularly perishable. Having inventory means not having to have another production run for that model as people buy them over time.

Also gw can directly influence demand by adjusting rules. If they want to maintain a low supply they can create low demand to prevent using resources on producing that model. An example of fall this is tau auxiliaries. kroot hounds and vespid were given good rules, meaning high demand but supply was immediately shorted meaning less sales of those and other tau models. On top of that the models are failcast so non -waac players lost interest.

If gw decided to not have any backup sites for production, either contracted or internally invested, that's their own fault. The demand for product is growing but the company doesn't seem to be trying to grow around it. Corporate growth isn't easy by any means but they are so far behind the market. Sure they're making money, just not as much as thru should be.

Finally, their projections seem biased. Well supported factions will sell better. Duh. Then they assume lower sales factions are unwanted and refuse to support them. Repeat. Sisters etc aren't selling poorly for lack of interest, it's for lack of quality. I'd have two more armies if not for failcast and out of stock models.

sossen wrote:
I love the conspiracy theory that GW are pushing SM to the detriment of other factions. All of those SM fanboys at GW HQ making irrational business decisions just to push their favorite faction. Can't they see that if they just release more eldar models they will sell like hotcakes?

to be fair, there's a perfectly rational argument that when product lines are unavailable, go long periods of time without updates, or are only available via special order, they're going to have problems selling. Thats not an unreasonable assertion. All depends on wheere you see the chicken-egg cycle at. Sometimes it's a bit of both

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
It's just reboxing. You can still order it from your FLGS through the distributor.

My girlfriend got me a ton of genestealers for xmas.

Geenstealers havn't been out of stock anytime I have looked at the nid kits online. Tried to order from a GW store but they just use the online system to make their special orders. Are you saying that if I went to a non GW store and had the owner order from the distributer they would be able to get me carnifex?

Probably.

They have a line direct to the distributors. And, they should be able to tell you if it's on back order, when they go to put in their order.

Some store owners who don't have a big 40k presence may not be able to figure out how to get this done. But shops with a 40k emphasis can do this.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Hell, I don't think ork wierdboyz have been for sale since 8th dropped. Like, at all. You can't find them on ebay, amazon, or any physical store I've visited.

yea.. but we ork players persevere... my weird boys are nob bodies, some odds and ends bits and green stuff for energy coming off of them holding literally twigs (the wood is so realistic because it is actual wood).

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
What are people worried about having inventory on hand? Plastic models aren't particularly perishable. Having inventory means not having to have another production run for that model as people buy them over time.

Also gw can directly influence demand by adjusting rules. If they want to maintain a low supply they can create low demand to prevent using resources on producing that model. An example of fall this is tau auxiliaries. kroot hounds and vespid were given good rules, meaning high demand but supply was immediately shorted meaning less sales of those and other tau models. On top of that the models are failcast so non -waac players lost interest.

If gw decided to not have any backup sites for production, either contracted or internally invested, that's their own fault. The demand for product is growing but the company doesn't seem to be trying to grow around it. Corporate growth isn't easy by any means but they are so far behind the market. Sure they're making money, just not as much as thru should be.

Finally, their projections seem biased. Well supported factions will sell better. Duh. Then they assume lower sales factions are unwanted and refuse to support them. Repeat. Sisters etc aren't selling poorly for lack of interest, it's for lack of quality. I'd have two more armies if not for failcast and out of stock models.

Let's break this down:

1) Why are people worried about inventory on hand? Because if that inventory is on hand at the end of the fiscal year it impacts the tax bill, you have to pay a tax on the value of your current stock. The goal is to keep stock levels finely balanced to prevent high lead times without creating a large backlog that will increase your taxes. This also ignores the dangers of having high amounts of stock on hand such as theft, fire, damage, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you have no experience in the manufacturing industry?

2) GW decided not to have back up sites contracted or otherwise. Are you aware of the cost to set up an injection molding facility? GW cannot outsource their manufacturing due to nearly piece of the process being proprietary so that's right out of the window. Now for them to set up their own internal sites they need to source land, injection machines, find a location where the infrastructure supports the needs of injection molding. This isn't a small process or outlay cost, no its a significant investment that requires board approval and can take years to successfully implement. The idea that GW isn't working to grow to meet their demands is foolish when you consider it through the lens of practical application.

3) Forecasting is biased. Do you know what sells even when there are no ongoing releases for it? Space Marines. Do you know what doesn't Tyranids (I use this as an example because its the subject of discussion). The forecasting model is built around not just release sales but consistent sales and average SKU turnover in stores and in at the distribution facilities. There is no refusal to support to anything - it is a matter of allocating resources in the best possible way.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

This also ignores the dangers of having high amounts of stock on hand such as theft, fire, damage, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you have no experience in the manufacturing industry?

He is clearly an adept businessman. I am eagerly awaiting the launch of his own company.

I'm not surprised they are not catching up with the nid models. 8th edition is selling like hot cakes right now, and with the reduced manufacturing capability i can easily imagine that they are already struggling to avoid having other kits go out of stock.

Look at the DA line, it's a massacre. They cannot hold up with the last hotness and you ask why tyranids are not getting produced?

 Xenomancers wrote:
How is it possible for a company to fail so badly?

4 months into the edition - they know that demand for models when a new codex comes out is higher than it has ever been. Yet - still - out of stock for all the best models 5 weeks after release. I am just dumbfounded. Was it like this for the other armies?

Same, I've had to go to Amazon to get the kits I need.

This is one the biggeest flaws with just-in-time production quality thinking. If it goes wrong you don't have a buffer of inventory and you can't quickly ramp up production. since you always try to use it to capacity. There's only two ways this gets solved: less demand or more supply. And it doesn't look like demand is slowing down.

We know GW can't increase production untill january so the out of stock problems are going to be staying untill then at least.

There was worldwide months long shortage of isolation material because BASF fethed up their predictions.

Earth127 wrote:
This is one the biggeest flaws with just-in-time production quality thinking. If it goes wrong you don't have a buffer of inventory and you can't quickly ramp up production. since you always try to use it to capacity. There's only two ways this gets solved: less demand or more supply. And it doesn't look like demand is slowing down.

We know GW can't increase production untill january so the out of stock problems are going to be staying untill then at least.

There was worldwide months long shortage of isolation material because BASF fethed up their predictions.

Exactly, and this is why I play multiple armies. Can't get the stuff for my bugs I want right now? No problem, I'll just play with my Marines, or my 30K stuff until I can.

I'm finishing my backlog over here.

The machinery is also prob 3 phase 600v. Good luck on sourcing and installing that. Would take weeks to even plan.

 Xenomancers wrote:
How is it possible for a company to fail so badly?

I am not sure that most companies consider exceptional high customer demand as "failing badly". I could be wrong though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Skawt wrote:
The machinery is also prob 3 phase 600v. Good luck on sourcing and installing that. Would take weeks to even plan.

Industrial mains is 415 vac in GB if I am not mistaken. And you can literally have a generator delivered and connected with hours notice. Although, that is a pretty expensive solution for something the utilities should be able to fix within a couple of hours as well. My guess is that something in the factory broke because of voltage spikes/black holes/salmon migration.

Ha, I can't believe you guys don't see this for what it is. The Tyranids are out of stick because they are dropping the line to make room for a new plastic army, Squats will be returning to take their place as soon as those genestealers get depleted enough.

GAW's stock a year ago was trading at $645 is currently sitting at an all time high of $2500, net income has more than doubled since last year, cash flow has doubled since last year, and revenue is up 50%. Please tell us more about how you think management at GAW don't know what they're doing.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GAW.L/financials?p=GAW.L

 Caveman wrote:
GAW's stock a year ago was trading at $645 is currently sitting at an all time high of $2500, net income has more than doubled since last year, cash flow has doubled since last year, and revenue is up 50%. Please tell us more about how you think management at GAW don't know what they're doing.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GAW.L/financials?p=GAW.L

Dude, the strawman is old and tired -- no one is saying the management don't know what they're doing NOW. But historically, they've managed to bungle a lot of choices.

Makes sense though, it must have been a very long while since they were short on means of production.

Talk about a crazy strong sign of success.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
What are people worried about having inventory on hand? Plastic models aren't particularly perishable. Having inventory means not having to have another production run for that model as people buy them over time.

Cost of opportunity, cost of production, cost of storage, cost of maintenance (oh hey we just bundled the old rules with those 5.000 boxes, can you change them kthx)

There are many good reasons to do what they did.

What they did not anticipate is that they would actually start growing again, I don't think anyone expected it either so ... w/e

They are probably making more tactical marines, because all the WAAC players need them to win tournaments.

Also, I think their past experience with Tyranid codices is probably not a huge increase in sales, but more like Tyranid players leaving hobby.

Im sorry, I try to be as nice as possible on this forum, but I just have to state that the levels of entitlement on this thread are staggering. You have no idea whats going on. I do not either. But I can assure you that this is not aimed at you and most certainly not the first time this has happened.

When the Legions codex hit almost a year ago GW ran out of nearly half the chaos lineup. Took them months to restock.

Kits dont poof into reality and there is limit capacity at the production level. So when they (GW) do something right and release a popular update to a range there is a chance they will have more demand than supply, It has happened before and it will happen again.

In america we have this problem that the hottest christmas toys seem to sell out quickly and supply cannot meet demand, we even have after market sellers who stock pile in anticipation. GW is not alone in this issue.

I am not a GW apologist. I am just not entitled.

Table wrote:
Im sorry, I try to be as nice as possible on this forum, but I just have to state that the levels of entitlement on this thread are staggering. You have no idea whats going on. I do not either. But I can assure you that this is not aimed at you and most certainly not the first time this has happened.

When the Legions codex hit almost a year ago GW ran out of nearly half the chaos lineup. Took them months to restock.

Kits dont poof into reality and there is limit capacity at the production level. So when they (GW) do something right and release a popular update to a range there is a chance they will have more demand than supply, It has happened before and it will happen again.

In america we have this problem that the hottest christmas toys seem to sell out quickly and supply cannot meet demand, we even have after market sellers who stock pile in anticipation. GW is not alone in this issue.

I am not a GW apologist. I am just not entitled.

My apologies if I've come off as entitled. GW is a company, they'll do as they well please and if they're missing out on some money from me buying Tyranids, I'm almost 99% sure they're recouping it from 3 or 4 others buying marines; I get that. But the problem with literally having over half the army out of stock (I'm too lazy to check for Nids right now, but that really doesn't look to be much of an exaggeration in the US at least) is that it means that new players are all going to be getting into the same armies, playing very similar lists. Nids are actually one of the few Xenos armies that have a mostly plastic range; if you're not into the blocky Mary Sues, the hungry bugs used to make for a great alternative. But how can you rampage through Marine lines with your Carnifex if you can't buy a Carnifex?

Just saying -- I hope GW's able to fix these production issues soon.

Table wrote:
Im sorry, I try to be as nice as possible on this forum, but I just have to state that the levels of entitlement on this thread are staggering. You have no idea whats going on. I do not either. But I can assure you that this is not aimed at you and most certainly not the first time this has happened.

When the Legions codex hit almost a year ago GW ran out of nearly half the chaos lineup. Took them months to restock.

Kits dont poof into reality and there is limit capacity at the production level. So when they (GW) do something right and release a popular update to a range there is a chance they will have more demand than supply, It has happened before and it will happen again.

In america we have this problem that the hottest christmas toys seem to sell out quickly and supply cannot meet demand, we even have after market sellers who stock pile in anticipation. GW is not alone in this issue.

I am not a GW apologist. I am just not entitled.

This isn't a new company, they are not stepping into the unknown here. The fact that after all these years of making games and related miniatures they are surprised by the demand is itself sign of poor management. Production takes time but they probably have release schedules for more than 12 months in relation to books, so easy to match production to launches.

The backlog is allegedly put on needing to upgrade their electrics in their manufacturing facility, but this isn't a problem that dropped a couple of weeks ago and is indicative of not having a proper repair and renewals policy. Again poor management.

They could likely have increased sales by a significant number in the year if they had sufficient stock is a fact that even the whitest of knights can agree. What we don't all agree on is whether this is considered a sign of success. They have increased profits but not at the rate they market demand would have allowed, so again questionable management.

Dumbest comment here is the "they don't hold stock because they pay tax on it" - the opposite of this is more close to the truth and more investment in raw materials and stock is likely to reduce profit and so tax for that period not increase tax.

 ruminator wrote:


This isn't a new company, they are not stepping into the unknown here. The fact that after all these years of making games and related miniatures they are surprised by the demand is itself sign of poor management. Production takes time but they probably have release schedules for more than 12 months in relation to books, so easy to match production to launches.

The backlog is allegedly put on needing to upgrade their electrics in their manufacturing facility, but this isn't a problem that dropped a couple of weeks ago and is indicative of not having a proper repair and renewals policy. Again poor management.

They could likely have increased sales by a significant number in the year if they had sufficient stock is a fact that even the whitest of knights can agree. What we don't all agree on is whether this is considered a sign of success. They have increased profits but not at the rate they market demand would have allowed, so again questionable management.

Dumbest comment here is the "they don't hold stock because they pay tax on it" - the opposite of this is more close to the truth and more investment in raw materials and stock is likely to reduce profit and so tax for that period not increase tax.

Launch schedules 12 months in advance - if you didn't read they still use a forecasting model to predict production levels. Regardless of what you think regarding stock increasing tax bill you are incorrect - at the end of the fiscal year companies are required to pay taxes on existing stock. I know this because I actually worked at GW in a role that was closely tied to keeping this figure as low as possible. This is an actual fact, the goal is to consistently to keep stock at as small a level of as possible to decrease stock and costs associated. the goal is to have no significant lead time but to not sit on stock for longer than 3 months.

Back Log due to upgrades needed at the facility. The power grid that supports their main manufacturing is being impacted by government construction causing an excess draw on the grid. They can't account for that, there is no upgrade they can pay for to prevent that.

Increased sales with better stock - this is obviously 100% true but as they say hindsight is 20/20. The counter point is they could have over produced and been operating at a liability of high stock levels and low turnover.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Caveman wrote:
GAW's stock a year ago was trading at $645 is currently sitting at an all time high of $2500, net income has more than doubled since last year, cash flow has doubled since last year, and revenue is up 50%. Please tell us more about how you think management at GAW don't know what they're doing.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GAW.L/financials?p=GAW.L

Dude, the strawman is old and tired -- no one is saying the management don't know what they're doing NOW. But historically, they've managed to bungle a lot of choices.

I'm having a hard time how you classify that as a strawman. This thread makes the claim that GW is currently clueless. His evidences is a strong indicator that they are not in many respects.

It's probably time to stop living in the past. The 'Future of FAQs' WarCom post should have been more than enough.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
What are people worried about having inventory on hand? Plastic models aren't particularly perishable. Having inventory means not having to have another production run for that model as people buy them over time.

Also gw can directly influence demand by adjusting rules. If they want to maintain a low supply they can create low demand to prevent using resources on producing that model. An example of fall this is tau auxiliaries. kroot hounds and vespid were given good rules, meaning high demand but supply was immediately shorted meaning less sales of those and other tau models. On top of that the models are failcast so non -waac players lost interest.

If gw decided to not have any backup sites for production, either contracted or internally invested, that's their own fault. The demand for product is growing but the company doesn't seem to be trying to grow around it. Corporate growth isn't easy by any means but they are so far behind the market. Sure they're making money, just not as much as thru should be.

Finally, their projections seem biased. Well supported factions will sell better. Duh. Then they assume lower sales factions are unwanted and refuse to support them. Repeat. Sisters etc aren't selling poorly for lack of interest, it's for lack of quality. I'd have two more armies if not for failcast and out of stock models.

Let's break this down:

1) Why are people worried about inventory on hand? Because if that inventory is on hand at the end of the fiscal year it impacts the tax bill, you have to pay a tax on the value of your current stock. The goal is to keep stock levels finely balanced to prevent high lead times without creating a large backlog that will increase your taxes. This also ignores the dangers of having high amounts of stock on hand such as theft, fire, damage, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you have no experience in the manufacturing industry?

Can someone in the UK confirm whether or not stock is taxable like that? I know it is in the USA, but you know what they say about assuming ...

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Caveman wrote:
GAW's stock a year ago was trading at $645 is currently sitting at an all time high of $2500, net income has more than doubled since last year, cash flow has doubled since last year, and revenue is up 50%. Please tell us more about how you think management at GAW don't know what they're doing.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GAW.L/financials?p=GAW.L

Dude, the strawman is old and tired -- no one is saying the management don't know what they're doing NOW. But historically, they've managed to bungle a lot of choices.

I'm having a hard time how you classify that as a strawman. This thread makes the claim that GW is currently clueless. His evidences is a strong indicator that they are not in many respects.

It's probably time to stop living in the past. The 'Future of FAQs' WarCom post should have been more than enough.

Alrighty, you're GW, a large, venerable miniatures company with an incredibly valuable, respected IP. Somehow, you find yourself *behind* in the tabletop space, in an era where tabletop games and nerd hobbies are hugely popular. You manage to make a comeback and your stock soars. You've done well, but is that really such a coup? Anyway, this is all beyond the point.

I want to buy Tyranids from GW. I can't -- that kind of sucks. The point of this thread is to commiserate on how that fact kind of sucks.

PS: 'Future of FAQs' has absolutely no bearing on this discussion; if you're going to start a discussion on how great GW's rules are, you should do it in another thread. To put it lightly, that opinion is a tiny bit controversial.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
What are people worried about having inventory on hand? Plastic models aren't particularly perishable. Having inventory means not having to have another production run for that model as people buy them over time.

Also gw can directly influence demand by adjusting rules. If they want to maintain a low supply they can create low demand to prevent using resources on producing that model. An example of fall this is tau auxiliaries. kroot hounds and vespid were given good rules, meaning high demand but supply was immediately shorted meaning less sales of those and other tau models. On top of that the models are failcast so non -waac players lost interest.

If gw decided to not have any backup sites for production, either contracted or internally invested, that's their own fault. The demand for product is growing but the company doesn't seem to be trying to grow around it. Corporate growth isn't easy by any means but they are so far behind the market. Sure they're making money, just not as much as thru should be.

Finally, their projections seem biased. Well supported factions will sell better. Duh. Then they assume lower sales factions are unwanted and refuse to support them. Repeat. Sisters etc aren't selling poorly for lack of interest, it's for lack of quality. I'd have two more armies if not for failcast and out of stock models.

Let's break this down:

1) Why are people worried about inventory on hand? Because if that inventory is on hand at the end of the fiscal year it impacts the tax bill, you have to pay a tax on the value of your current stock. The goal is to keep stock levels finely balanced to prevent high lead times without creating a large backlog that will increase your taxes. This also ignores the dangers of having high amounts of stock on hand such as theft, fire, damage, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you have no experience in the manufacturing industry?

Can someone in the UK confirm whether or not stock is taxable like that? I know it is in the USA, but you know what they say about assuming ...

I can confirm this, it's total nonsense. He's spouting like he's an expert and industry insider, but his knowledge of UK tax law is NIL. Makes you question the validity of his other statements.

By the way, I've worked in UK Tax for over 25 years now, both 9 years with Inland Revenue (as was) and over 16 years in practice with Top 10/Big 4 firms before he questions my credentials.

Regardless of the laws in the UK - that is how stock is taxed in the US. And to be fair I am not a tax expert in the UK but to my understanding you do have to carry forward unsold stock at cost price in the UK. Consider also that around 40% of what is produced in the UK ends up in the distribution center in Memphis TN. So there is 100% still an impact on tax valuation based on excess stock. You have to consider the impact of being multi-national on a company like GW and how and when they chose to produce.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Doesn't change the fact that it's how the laws work in the US which is part of the tax scope for GW and a fair (around 40%) of what is produced in the UK ends up in the distribution center in Memphis TN.

For someone who works in tax you'd think you'd consider the impact of being multi-national on a company like GW and how and when they chose to produce.

You are at least adding humour to the thread I suppose ...

It's a UK Listed Company, with significantly less than half their sales in the US, no manufacturing base in the US and you think US tax laws determine their global structure ... ok. I won't go into detail but it's boring to those not directly involved and you only listen to one voice it appears. Needless to say we do find many clients in the US have the misapprehension the rest of the world has an identical tax system to their own and have to correct of them of that view.

Interesting facts given that 75% of their sales come from outside the UK of which the US distribution center serves as the DC for all non European markets. They also do not list their revenue by market other than to break down the larger portion does not come from the UK.

But please feel free to condescend rather than actually address the points at hand.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Interesting facts given that 75% of their sales come from outside the UK of which the US distribution center serves as the DC for all non European markets. They also do not list their revenue by market other than to break down the larger portion does not come from the UK.

But please feel free to condescend rather than actually address the points at hand.

I have addressed the issue. You stated that US tax rules are a reason for not manufacturing more stock and I refuted that and still do. You can build enough Tyranids for 3 Years and by only running enough stock through the US and holding the rest elsewhere there are no adverse tax issues here. Only where manufacturing was also in the US would this be an issue and it isn’t the case here.

So why would they not want to maximise production outside the US? Build up production for new release and then ship to US say 2 months before launch?

I stated my credentials and you were the one being condascending in my eyes by belittling my professional integrity.

I apologize for belittling your professional integrity - first and foremost.

We'll agree to disagree regarding the rest of the impact of excess stock - you have a different view point than I do. Ultimately I understand why GW doesn't sit on excess stock. I know its frustrating for many people and many people don't agree with that decision. The issue I take is with the assertion that GW is incompetent or intentionally negligent - I still know a lot of good people who work for GW who are both passionate and very skilled at what they do.

Not sure what the US has to do with it, but there are massive logistic operations in place throughout manufacturing to reduce inventory, both in terms of material and product. It's one of the biggest drivers to reduce cost and waste in manufacturing. The idea that they would produce months worth of stock just to sit there in case there was an infrastructure failure is ridiculous, that's what companies pay insurance for.

The idea of some rando posting on a forum that it's "unacceptable" is laughable.

 matt123456790 wrote:
Not sure what the US has to do with it, but there are massive logistic operations in place throughout manufacturing to reduce inventory, both in terms of material and product. It's one of the biggest drivers to reduce cost and waste in manufacturing. The idea that they would produce months worth of stock just to sit there in case there was an infrastructure failure is ridiculous, that's what companies pay insurance for.

The idea of some rando posting on a forum that it's "unacceptable" is laughable.

Alrighty then -- this rando will just take his money and buy what he wants secondhand, thus cutting GW out of the equation. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Why is there such condescension towards people who just want to be able to buy something that GW ostensibly sells?

Is this thread even still on the same rails? Or has it jumped the track St this point?

 ruminator wrote:

Table wrote:
Im sorry, I try to be as nice as possible on this forum, but I just have to state that the levels of entitlement on this thread are staggering. You have no idea whats going on. I do not either. But I can assure you that this is not aimed at you and most certainly not the first time this has happened.

When the Legions codex hit almost a year ago GW ran out of nearly half the chaos lineup. Took them months to restock.

Kits dont poof into reality and there is limit capacity at the production level. So when they (GW) do something right and release a popular update to a range there is a chance they will have more demand than supply, It has happened before and it will happen again.

In america we have this problem that the hottest christmas toys seem to sell out quickly and supply cannot meet demand, we even have after market sellers who stock pile in anticipation. GW is not alone in this issue.

I am not a GW apologist. I am just not entitled.

This isn't a new company, they are not stepping into the unknown here. The fact that after all these years of making games and related miniatures they are surprised by the demand is itself sign of poor management. Production takes time but they probably have release schedules for more than 12 months in relation to books, so easy to match production to launches.

The backlog is allegedly put on needing to upgrade their electrics in their manufacturing facility, but this isn't a problem that dropped a couple of weeks ago and is indicative of not having a proper repair and renewals policy. Again poor management.

They could likely have increased sales by a significant number in the year if they had sufficient stock is a fact that even the whitest of knights can agree. What we don't all agree on is whether this is considered a sign of success. They have increased profits but not at the rate they market demand would have allowed, so again questionable management.

Dumbest comment here is the "they don't hold stock because they pay tax on it" - the opposite of this is more close to the truth and more investment in raw materials and stock is likely to reduce profit and so tax for that period not increase tax.

Thanks Ruminator, you stated my argument much better than I did. It's pretty simple - you know your release schedule because you made it. To not overstock the new release well in advance of the release is incompetence - plain and simple. I don't care if you use some other system - your system wasn't designed for a release schedule like this with a completely new edition that all active players are going to cash in on.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

Table wrote:
Im sorry, I try to be as nice as possible on this forum, but I just have to state that the levels of entitlement on this thread are staggering. You have no idea whats going on. I do not either. But I can assure you that this is not aimed at you and most certainly not the first time this has happened.

When the Legions codex hit almost a year ago GW ran out of nearly half the chaos lineup. Took them months to restock.

Kits dont poof into reality and there is limit capacity at the production level. So when they (GW) do something right and release a popular update to a range there is a chance they will have more demand than supply, It has happened before and it will happen again.

In america we have this problem that the hottest christmas toys seem to sell out quickly and supply cannot meet demand, we even have after market sellers who stock pile in anticipation. GW is not alone in this issue.

I am not a GW apologist. I am just not entitled.

My apologies if I've come off as entitled. GW is a company, they'll do as they well please and if they're missing out on some money from me buying Tyranids, I'm almost 99% sure they're recouping it from 3 or 4 others buying marines; I get that. But the problem with literally having over half the army out of stock (I'm too lazy to check for Nids right now, but that really doesn't look to be much of an exaggeration in the US at least) is that it means that new players are all going to be getting into the same armies, playing very similar lists. Nids are actually one of the few Xenos armies that have a mostly plastic range; if you're not into the blocky Mary Sues, the hungry bugs used to make for a great alternative. But how can you rampage through Marine lines with your Carnifex if you can't buy a Carnifex?

Just saying -- I hope GW's able to fix these production issues soon.

Doh! Im sorry I was not more clear. My statement was mainly targeted at Xenomancers. I just dont like insulting people or causing problems, Im a beta male I guess :(

But yes, it sucks when GW's webstore runs out of stock. For years they have been pushing the webstore as a main source of sales despite its negative impact of independent stockists, so we get used to using it. When I sold my lolcrons last year I needed to build a chaos force from scratch. And found it almost impossible to do that with their stocking issues at the time. Literally half the range was either OOS or OOP.

So I just hit the streets and got things at my LGS. Amazon or ebay works great to. While I am impressed at the changes taking place at GW I am by no means a fan boy., They have been a sh#t company for many years.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 matt123456790 wrote:
Not sure what the US has to do with it, but there are massive logistic operations in place throughout manufacturing to reduce inventory, both in terms of material and product. It's one of the biggest drivers to reduce cost and waste in manufacturing. The idea that they would produce months worth of stock just to sit there in case there was an infrastructure failure is ridiculous, that's what companies pay insurance for.

The idea of some rando posting on a forum that it's "unacceptable" is laughable.

Alrighty then -- this rando will just take his money and buy what he wants secondhand, thus cutting GW out of the equation. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Why is there such condescension towards people who just want to be able to buy something that GW ostensibly sells?

That's a completely fine and logical solution. It is in fact accepting the lack of stock that GW has and dealing with it, quite literally the opposite to the "unacceptable" reaction I was commenting on.

GW is obviously not having stock shortages as a deliberate strategy and is obviously not holding back stock out of spite. The condescension is reserved specifically for people who have not purchased a product nor ordered it yet act as though they're being duped somehow.

Just wait for them to sort the issues they're having or go elsewhere for the same goods. There is no option to refuse to accept it, it is what it is.

 Caveman wrote:
GAW's stock a year ago was trading at $645 is currently sitting at an all time high of $2500, net income has more than doubled since last year, cash flow has doubled since last year, and revenue is up 50%. Please tell us more about how you think management at GAW don't know what they're doing.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GAW.L/financials?p=GAW.L

I'm not arguing for/against anything you said here. I just want to point out that you're missing a decimal place. For whatever reason, the British Stock Exchange (or whatever it's called) leaves off the decimal. Assuming your numbers are right, that's 6.45 per share and now 25.00 per share.

Still about 3x what it was last year.

This seems like excessive negativity, even for Dakka.

Table wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

Table wrote:
Im sorry, I try to be as nice as possible on this forum, but I just have to state that the levels of entitlement on this thread are staggering. You have no idea whats going on. I do not either. But I can assure you that this is not aimed at you and most certainly not the first time this has happened.

When the Legions codex hit almost a year ago GW ran out of nearly half the chaos lineup. Took them months to restock.

Kits dont poof into reality and there is limit capacity at the production level. So when they (GW) do something right and release a popular update to a range there is a chance they will have more demand than supply, It has happened before and it will happen again.

In america we have this problem that the hottest christmas toys seem to sell out quickly and supply cannot meet demand, we even have after market sellers who stock pile in anticipation. GW is not alone in this issue.

I am not a GW apologist. I am just not entitled.

My apologies if I've come off as entitled. GW is a company, they'll do as they well please and if they're missing out on some money from me buying Tyranids, I'm almost 99% sure they're recouping it from 3 or 4 others buying marines; I get that. But the problem with literally having over half the army out of stock (I'm too lazy to check for Nids right now, but that really doesn't look to be much of an exaggeration in the US at least) is that it means that new players are all going to be getting into the same armies, playing very similar lists. Nids are actually one of the few Xenos armies that have a mostly plastic range; if you're not into the blocky Mary Sues, the hungry bugs used to make for a great alternative. But how can you rampage through Marine lines with your Carnifex if you can't buy a Carnifex?

Just saying -- I hope GW's able to fix these production issues soon.

Doh! Im sorry I was not more clear. My statement was mainly targeted at Xenomancers. I just dont like insulting people or causing problems, Im a beta male I guess :(

But yes, it sucks when GW's webstore runs out of stock. For years they have been pushing the webstore as a main source of sales despite its negative impact of independent stockists, so we get used to using it. When I sold my lolcrons last year I needed to build a chaos force from scratch. And found it almost impossible to do that with their stocking issues at the time. Literally half the range was either OOS or OOP.

So I just hit the streets and got things at my LGS. Amazon or ebay works great to. While I am impressed at the changes taking place at GW I am by no means a fan boy., They have been a sh#t company for many years.

No offense taken, but thanks for the apology! I'm 100% with you. I've gotta wonder -- if 40k had gone the M:tG route and not been as proprietary with where their stuff is sold, I wonder where the game would be now. I think they've started taking the right steps in that regard (stuff like Battle for Vedros is a great idea), but I could see them having achieved a much wider audience if they'd engaged with the big box stores a long time ago.


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 matt123456790 wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 matt123456790 wrote:
Not sure what the US has to do with it, but there are massive logistic operations in place throughout manufacturing to reduce inventory, both in terms of material and product. It's one of the biggest drivers to reduce cost and waste in manufacturing. The idea that they would produce months worth of stock just to sit there in case there was an infrastructure failure is ridiculous, that's what companies pay insurance for.

The idea of some rando posting on a forum that it's "unacceptable" is laughable.

Alrighty then -- this rando will just take his money and buy what he wants secondhand, thus cutting GW out of the equation. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Why is there such condescension towards people who just want to be able to buy something that GW ostensibly sells?

That's a completely fine and logical solution. It is in fact accepting the lack of stock that GW has and dealing with it, quite literally the opposite to the "unacceptable" reaction I was commenting on.

GW is obviously not having stock shortages as a deliberate strategy and is obviously not holding back stock out of spite. The condescension is reserved specifically for people who have not purchased a product nor ordered it yet act as though they're being duped somehow.

Just wait for them to sort the issues they're having or go elsewhere for the same goods. There is no option to refuse to accept it, it is what it is.

Fair point -- this place doesn't need any more griping for griping's sake.

 matt123456790 wrote:
Not sure what the US has to do with it, but there are massive logistic operations in place throughout manufacturing to reduce inventory, both in terms of material and product. It's one of the biggest drivers to reduce cost and waste in manufacturing. The idea that they would produce months worth of stock just to sit there in case there was an infrastructure failure is ridiculous, that's what companies pay insurance for.

The idea of some rando posting on a forum that it's "unacceptable" is laughable.

Agreed. Stock costs money. The more stock they have just sitting around the more they are paying for. GW doesn't want to have stock sitting any more than stores(stuff sitting on stores can be so expensive it can be better for stores to literally sell stuf for loss rather than keep it hoping somebody buys. Case in point AOS starter sets during first half year when many stores found they couldn't get rid of them so sold them for less than they paid themselves plus had to pay shipping...). GW has actually clearly been reducing amount of stuff they keep available and combined with declinining # of sales they had it's not that surprising they weren't counting on quite this turn around. Then coupled with production issues and no surprise they ran into hickup.

Good thing they by chance or for some other reason had decided well ahead to not release any new models or production issues would be even worse(seeing most model sales are in first few months of it's lifetime so those new models would have been on priority)

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:


Alrighty, you're GW, a large, venerable miniatures company with an incredibly valuable, respected IP. Somehow, you find yourself *behind* in the tabletop space, in an era where tabletop games and nerd hobbies are hugely popular. You manage to make a comeback and your stock soars. You've done well, but is that really such a coup? Anyway, this is all beyond the point.

I want to buy Tyranids from GW. I can't -- that kind of sucks. The point of this thread is to commiserate on how that fact kind of sucks.

No it isn't. This is literally the first sentence of the OP "How is it possible for a company to fail so badly?"

It sucks, yes. Does that mean GW is currently poorly managed? That's a pretty hard claim to make and verify.

PS: 'Future of FAQs' has absolutely no bearing on this discussion; if you're going to start a discussion on how great GW's rules are, you should do it in another thread. To put it lightly, that opinion is a tiny bit controversial.

The article doesn't support how great the rules are - it demonstrates the increasing level of engagement and awareness GW has towards the community. It's the swan song for people who still act like we're dealing with "Old GW".

Does that mean you have to like every thing GW does? No, absolutely not, but it's probably time to start reflecting on our perceptions a little more.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/searchResults?N=2562756967+3206404541+114138398

Bet you that these are stocked up big time. No time to make nids when you got all your injectors pumping out snap tite primaris models.

Yes Xeno - because the snap tight models are new releases and from a faster selling model range. As has been discussed. These were produced ahead of release - it isn't a conspiracy theory, you're just a conspiracy theorist.

They still sell Goff Rockers from GWs homepage. That is what you end up doing if you keep too large inventories.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Yes Xeno - because the snap tites are new releases and from a faster selling model range. As has been discussed.

Not denying that space marines sell best for them. They shouldn't be selling best for them at the expense of other sales though. A time will pass soon when the nids time to shine is over...or another release coincides with the stock of nids rolling off the line - it will cost them money - money they didn't have to lose.

I mean FFS - they already have tons of redemptor dreads and agressors on the shelves at every strore I go to. Why would you waste production time on something that is already widely available to the customer...granted it's an "easy to build" kit but still - You are doubling the amount of agressors and redemptors on the shelves when you could put some carnifex and ravenours and hive gaurd up there too. Plus - I can't even get the product off their own webstore? People need to be fired is what I am saying. Too much stupidity going on.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Yes Xeno - because the snap tites are new releases and from a faster selling model range. As has been discussed.

Not denying that space marines sell best for them. They shouldn't be selling best for them at the expense of other sales though. A time will pass soon when the nids time to shine is over...or another release coincides with the stock of nids rolling off the line - it will cost them money - money they didn't have to lose.

I mean FFS - they already have tons of redemptor dreads and agressors on the shelves at every strore I go to. Why would you waste production time on something that is already widely available to the customer...granted it's an "easy to build" kit but still - You are doubling the amount of agressors and redemptors on the shelves when you could put some carnifex and ravenours and hive gaurd up there too. Plus - I can't even get the product off their own webstore? People need to be fired is what I am saying. Too much stupidity going on.

That there is a ready supply of Space Marine kits but sold out everywhere of Tyranids definitely suggests that Tyranids are outselling Marines at the moment.

Well fortunately Xeno you don't get to make those decisions - firing people because you can't get the toys want is pretty rough. Especially in light of the fact that they're down in manufacturing capacity currently.

What they're likely doing is keeping up with core products first and catching up on other stock later. But at this point I believe you HONESTLY in your heart of hearts believe they are choosing not to run Tyranids at the expense of new releases when the new releases have already been printed and boxed by now.

Xenomancers is proof Winston Churchill was right.

Sorry dude, but from your rantings you have proven you have literally less than zero knowledge of either GW's operation, the business of miniature manufacturing or business in general.

It's already been explained to you multiple times that the shortages are not GW's fault and that there is literally nothing GW could have done without spending literal millions on a new production plant somewhere. If you're willing to stump up the cash, be my guest.

 Xenomancers wrote:
People need to be fired is what I am saying.

Why don't you crack on with it then?

So this whole thread is about someone couldn't buy Carnifexes from the GW game store? They restocked last week and sold out in 2 days. I don't think GW could have predicted people had a high demand for an okay-ish unit in the Tyranid codex. Just tell them to email you when it restocks, simmer down, and buy it when it comes back in a week or 2. Its the holiday season stuff gets bought up quick. Happy Holidays.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Xenomancers is proof Winston Churchill was right.

Sorry dude, but from your rantings you have proven you have literally less than zero knowledge of either GW's operation, the business of miniature manufacturing or business in general.

It's already been explained to you multiple times that the shortages are not GW's fault and that there is literally nothing GW could have done without spending literal millions on a new production plant somewhere. If you're willing to stump up the cash, be my guest.

LOL - the part that is funny is where you say it's not GW's fault that they don't have their products available for sale at their release dates and 5 weeks after. When this date was likely set in motion over a year ago and we only get wind of when a new release is coming a few weeks before. It really is comical. FYI - I don't need to know a quibit of how GW production works. I hold it to the same standard of any other company that produces it's own products. It might very well be that "the way GW operates" is the reason for their terrible supply problems - that is still GW's fault though. BTW - I always likes this quote from Winston - "Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things"

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 Funzeez wrote:
So this whole thread is about someone couldn't buy Carnifexes from the GW game store? They restocked last week and sold out in 2 days. I don't think GW could have predicted people had a high demand for an okay-ish unit in the Tyranid codex. Just tell them to email you when it restocks, simmer down, and buy it when it comes back in a week or 2. Its the holiday season stuff gets bought up quick. Happy Holidays.

Riight...being able to buy a product I want at a store for GW products is almost impossible - that is something I never expect. I am forced to order it online and wait for delivery...and I am fine with that. When I can't order a product for 5 weeks (really they have been unavailable for longer than that but I can't tell you exactly how long) I have to scratch my head and wonder...What kind of dorks run this company?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 matt123456790 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
People need to be fired is what I am saying.

Why don't you crack on with it then?

Would if I could buddy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Well fortunately Xeno you don't get to make those decisions - firing people because you can't get the toys want is pretty rough. Especially in light of the fact that they're down in manufacturing capacity currently.

What they're likely doing is keeping up with core products first and catching up on other stock later. But at this point I believe you HONESTLY in your heart of hearts believe they are choosing not to run Tyranids at the expense of new releases when the new releases have already been printed and boxed by now.

War-hammer 40k is their core product...New release of codex for an army is a huge sales incentive. It makes 0 sense to ignore that. If they literally can't make the product that is one thing but we all know they can. It wouldn't be firing people because I can't get my toys ether...quite obviously it would be people getting fired because their inability to do their job and costing the company and share holders money - I assure you - this is how the rest of the world works. It's a good thing it works that way too - it maximizes profits and lowers the cost the consumer in the long run.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Would if I could buddy.

Oh yeah I forgot you're not actually in charge of GW for a moment there and you're just moaning to other people that have no sway over the problem.

Martel732 wrote:
This seems like excessive negativity, even for Dakka.

Yeah, I mean... GW's factory has been having massive power shortage issues due to circumstances entirely beyond their control. The entire topic should end there.

Tylendal wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
This seems like excessive negativity, even for Dakka.

Yeah, I mean... GW's factory has been having massive power shortage issues due to circumstances entirely beyond their control. The entire topic should end there.

Don't be niave - just look at their website. New snap tite agressors and redemptors avaiable for preorder (as in they are being built and packaged right now)...carnifex - still out of stock.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
This seems like excessive negativity, even for Dakka.

Explain?

Dude 1/4 new kits is already OOS.

You are also very delusional if you think the preorders of this weel are being worked on, today/right now. That's at least a few weeks to allow buffer/transport.( by boat, you don't fly that kind of thing across the ocean).

 Xenomancers wrote:

Don't be niave - just look at their website. New snap tite agressors and redemptors avaiable for preorder (as in they are being built and packaged right now)...carnifex - still out of stock.

If the Carnifex was in stock, then something else would be out of stock. They are currently physically incapable of keeping everything in stock right now, due to circumstances beyond their control.

edited by moderator

Can we just stop feeding the troll now? Cause at this point, for the sake of my faith in humanity, I have to believe that Xeno is a troll with nothing better to do than waste peoples' time with threads like this.

Let this thread die, please.

 ruminator wrote:

Table wrote:
Im sorry, I try to be as nice as possible on this forum, but I just have to state that the levels of entitlement on this thread are staggering. You have no idea whats going on. I do not either. But I can assure you that this is not aimed at you and most certainly not the first time this has happened.

When the Legions codex hit almost a year ago GW ran out of nearly half the chaos lineup. Took them months to restock.

Kits dont poof into reality and there is limit capacity at the production level. So when they (GW) do something right and release a popular update to a range there is a chance they will have more demand than supply, It has happened before and it will happen again.

In america we have this problem that the hottest christmas toys seem to sell out quickly and supply cannot meet demand, we even have after market sellers who stock pile in anticipation. GW is not alone in this issue.

I am not a GW apologist. I am just not entitled.

This isn't a new company, they are not stepping into the unknown here. The fact that after all these years of making games and related miniatures they are surprised by the demand is itself sign of poor management. Production takes time but they probably have release schedules for more than 12 months in relation to books, so easy to match production to launches.

Actually they are.

They haven't been growing for at least 10 years, it's a massively huge business change.

pismakron wrote:
They still sell Goff Rockers from GWs homepage. That is what you end up doing if you keep too large inventories.

Just imagine how many they would have sold if they had actually bothered to put some rules on them in the index.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

These are easy problems to solve actually...actually having product available to sell is basically rule number 1 of business. They should have expected 8th edition would be as popular as it is. They had a full 6 months (or more) to prepare and stock up...it is - indefensible and it's costing them money. Good companies don't let money slip away from them.

So tell me how many years have you spent running an injection facility? How many years have you spent in product management and store set? You have no idea what you're talking about here because you simply don't understand the basic business in play here. Sure in an ideal world every company at all times keeps stock levels ramped to holiday levels, that world doesn't exist though. See the video game console industry, see the high end specialty car industry - it isn't easy to perfectly predict demand against supply. Also let me ask again - do you understand how having excess stock on hand works for a company?

He also doesn't understand how much production is lost to changing moulds. They can't just knock out a few carnifexes to get the stock back up in between other things. Because of the lost time for switching moulds they have to make a full run or they're making the problem worse. That means something else loses it's production slot and then goes out of stock.

I think there are some other factors that are being missed as well that are contributing to part of the problem.

The first is that games stores are pretty much required to stock certain products just to be a trade partner. Many of the small game stores i have gone to stock the same "core" products and do very little to carry any additional product beyond that. Most often i am told to special order or pre-order product to guarantee i get it.

Both GW and local game stores are trying to reduce the amount of product they have to buy that just sits on the shelves. Stores have to buy that product from their distributors and until a final sale is made that is cash out of their pocket, and by carrying a smaller amount of stock that is less cash they have to put out that sits on the shelf collecting dust.

That brings me to my second point which is popularity. IMHO i found 6th and 7th to be pretty garbage editions, i really have not bought models or books during their lifespans. Some armies were pretty terrible during those editions, Tyranids being one of them. Now in 8th they got much better in the indexes and while that might have been a good time for GW to ramp up their production i feel that many players have been holding off purchases until their army's codex is out. At my FLGS over half of the players are interested in 8th and want to play but are waiting for a codex rather than using just the indexes. That slightly skews GW's ability to project demand for their products.

I feel that direct only models are also a contributing factor into the shortage. By making a model Direct Only, GW can now produce smaller batch runs as they only have to stock a handful of warehouses rather than have enough product on hand to stock every store.

So really the situation is you have a "streamlined" almost on demand production line that already has ebbs and flows of production hit with an electrical grid disruption on top of higher demand from a successful release and this is pretty much as worse case as it could get.

Nobody is recommending they sit on masses and masses of unrequired stock. What they are querying is why GW seem unable to appreciate that the release of a new Tyranid codex will co-incide with an increase in demand for Tyranid models. As the codex issue was likely known some 12 months in advance we're not talking about a mass of changing moulds around weeks before, but a proper production plan for at least a year so that availability of stock is considered in line with new codex releases and hits the shelves at the right time.

There was even a comment here that GW had no way of knowing the carnifex box would likely increase in demand following the new codex dropping. Really? Not only the generic carnifex entry, but an HQ entry (OOE) and 2 specific named carnifex versions in addition to this would make this look pretty likely. If you asked the writers I'm sure they'd have flagged that as one to watch and were likely specifically tasked which making the model useable again.

Does anyone honestly think there won't be an increase in sales of Blood Angels and Dark Angels boxes on the new codexes dropping? Do you honestly think that GW can't work this out from all the years of previous codex releases and plan ahead. Codexes do have long lead times themselves after all.

You don't think the external shareholders will be looking at the out of stock issues and asking some hard questions as to why this wasn't handled better. The shares have gone up, yes, but realistically could have gone up more - same for dividends.

"Half" is pushing it.

Sad person that I am, I counted (on the US site).

51 options, 20 not available for one reason or another, so 2/5.

Still not great, tho some items double up - there are several carnifex brood options, so I assume that if ONE fex isn't available, multiples won't be either. The doubling up would also of course apply to sets that ARE in stock.

As for "5,000 carnifex kits will sell instantly" (or words to that effect, surely that can only be a random or wishful guess. The only person I would expect to have a knowledgeable view on this would be stock control/inventory/management, who could presumably tell how many fexes have sold in the last 3 months....

 ruminator wrote:
Nobody is recommending they sit on masses and masses of unrequired stock. What they are querying is why GW seem unable to appreciate that the release of a new Tyranid codex will co-incide with an increase in demand for Tyranid models.

What makes you think they didn't spin more to prepare? Do you have evidence of this?

 ruminator wrote:
Nobody is recommending they sit on masses and masses of unrequired stock. What they are querying is why GW seem unable to appreciate that the release of a new Tyranid codex will co-incide with an increase in demand for Tyranid models. As the codex issue was likely known some 12 months in advance we're not talking about a mass of changing moulds around weeks before, but a proper production plan for at least a year so that availability of stock is considered in line with new codex releases and hits the shelves at the right time.

There was even a comment here that GW had no way of knowing the carnifex box would likely increase in demand following the new codex dropping. Really? Not only the generic carnifex entry, but an HQ entry (OOE) and 2 specific named carnifex versions in addition to this would make this look pretty likely. If you asked the writers I'm sure they'd have flagged that as one to watch and were likely specifically tasked which making the model useable again.

Does anyone honestly think there won't be an increase in sales of Blood Angels and Dark Angels boxes on the new codexes dropping? Do you honestly think that GW can't work this out from all the years of previous codex releases and plan ahead. Codexes do have long lead times themselves after all.

You don't think the external shareholders will be looking at the out of stock issues and asking some hard questions as to why this wasn't handled better. The shares have gone up, yes, but realistically could have gone up more - same for dividends.

So you really think they didn't increase at all the stock levels pre-release? Or maybe (and the more likely) is that they did increase stock levels but missed the mark because the release proved more popular than forecasted.

It's all about supply chain management, safety stock, projecting expected sales, and maintaining inventory levels of 100+ SKUs.

Any feth up in one of the above and you run out of a product.

It can happen to anyone, but it's certainly frustrating if you're the person that wants that thing. I can certainly empathize.

So (based entirely on what I have read on the thread), is it possible that GW can't move the mold machines for certain models from the depowered factory?

I may be showing my ignorance of plastic casting here, but every time I think of a factory I think of floor-length production lines and huge machines bolted to the floor. I'm probably wrong, but it seems to me like moving the machinery from one factory to another is a herculean effort, and that would tell me that they simply are completely unable to produce the stock requested until a lucky day when the power is on.

They will most likely be moving the molds, not entire machines.

Yeah they'd be able to move molds but moving entire machines isn't something that's easily done - it takes a large amount of effort and heavy hauling equipment.

Complaining cause minis have been out of stock for only a few weeks is pretty much the definition of first world problems.

Given the amount of people suddenly returning, I'm amazed they keep anything in stock at all...

Moving heavy machinery isn't easy. It's a lot of practical little details. It's not neccesary herculean but thakes time and effort. They are probably better of just waiting for more power.

Injection molding means high presure,molten plastic. You can't just do that anywhere. Both because of power and safety concerns.

There is also the legal side of the issue. There are some sharp quality/safety/enviroment assurances you need to give in EU countries before being allowed to open another factory. GW isn't huge but big enough and with dangerous equipment to need bigger asurances.

All in all a company the size of GW can't adapt to problems very quickly. Three weeks on a production scale is practically nothing.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 ruminator wrote:
Nobody is recommending they sit on masses and masses of unrequired stock. What they are querying is why GW seem unable to appreciate that the release of a new Tyranid codex will co-incide with an increase in demand for Tyranid models.

What makes you think they didn't spin more to prepare? Do you have evidence of this?

The speed in which large chunks of the Nid range went OOS is indicative that any increase was marginal at best. Do you have anything to support they do project sales based on codex releases, because recent history is hardly supportive of this?

Let's be honest, go into any stockist (including their own stores) and the boxes are pretty much the same every time, irrespective of what's come out recently. I bought my Nid codex from Warhammer on Tottenham Court Road and a quick look at the Nid models in stock and there was about 6-7 different boxes in total. The shelf was looking organized as well so it didn't look half empty like they'd had a run on Nids that day, just that they had a basic stock of Nid models in stock ... on the day the codex came out! Talk about lost sales - if they'd a box of hive guard or two there I would probably have bought some for sure! I'm sure that's likely the case with many customers.

 ruminator wrote:

Daedalus81 wrote:

 ruminator wrote:
Nobody is recommending they sit on masses and masses of unrequired stock. What they are querying is why GW seem unable to appreciate that the release of a new Tyranid codex will co-incide with an increase in demand for Tyranid models.

What makes you think they didn't spin more to prepare? Do you have evidence of this?

The speed in which large chunks of the Nid range went OOS is indicative that any increase was marginal at best. Do you have anything to support they do project sales based on codex releases, because recent history is hardly supportive of this?

I do. That was part of my job for GW.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 ruminator wrote:

Daedalus81 wrote:

 ruminator wrote:
Nobody is recommending they sit on masses and masses of unrequired stock. What they are querying is why GW seem unable to appreciate that the release of a new Tyranid codex will co-incide with an increase in demand for Tyranid models.

What makes you think they didn't spin more to prepare? Do you have evidence of this?

The speed in which large chunks of the Nid range went OOS is indicative that any increase was marginal at best. Do you have anything to support they do project sales based on codex releases, because recent history is hardly supportive of this?

I do. That was part of my job for GW.

You did a great job then!

Snark is fine - I'm no longer employed there. Just offering you proof that GW does spool up stock levels prior to a release based on an existing forecasting model.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
Snark is fine - I'm no longer employed there. Just offering you proof that GW does spool up stock levels prior to a release based on an existing forecasting model.

Which by nature can't be right in a period where sales pick up dramatically.

Honestly, I think they were surprised by their own success, and they weren't the only ones.

US Nid players -- Carnifexes and Raveners are back in stop. Go for it!

Another imbalance between the haves and have-not armies, btw; it seems like you can buy intercessors in what, 3, different box sizes? For whatever reason, GW deleted the single Carnifex box from their catalog; I love Carnifexes enough to buy them twice, but I'm pretty sure Marine players don't have to do anything like that.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
US Nid players -- Carnifexes and Raveners are back in stop. Go for it!

Another imbalance between the haves and have-not armies, btw; it seems like you can buy intercessors in what, 3, different box sizes?

Yes and no.
There's a "Combat Squad" box for $35(5 of the multi-part Intercessors) and an "Intercessor Squad" box for $60(10 of the multi-part Intercessors). That came about because of the reception of Stormcast Eternals; notably the fact that a minimum sized unit was $50 for 5 of the multi-parts. They basically didn't sell as people just bought the starter set instead. They just did things in reverse with Primaris, where we started with the 10 model box and got the 5 model box later.

The third box is $15 and is 3 models intended to fill out a squad/add some extra models to the starter set stuff.


Termagants actually have a 5 for $10 box that is just the Devourer IIRC. Basically pushfit stuff.

For whatever reason, GW deleted the single Carnifex box from their catalog; I love Carnifexes enough to buy them twice, but I'm pretty sure Marine players don't have to do anything like that.

It's been gone for quite some time.
We don't really know why. There's an assumption that part of it was in response to the existence of(at that time) the old Battleforces that included Carnifexes being considered a "better value". So they ditched the 1x Carnifex box(which was $50) and instead set them to the 2x Carnifex box at $90(saving you $10).

 ruminator wrote:

The speed in which large chunks of the Nid range went OOS is indicative that any increase was marginal at best.

Some horribly faulty logic there.

All it tells you is that demand outstripped supply by a substantial margin. Unless you have some data on one of those variables then you can make no such inference.

So wait...if GW doesn't magically know how exactly, to the decimal, how many butthurt neckbeards are going to come REEEEEEEEing out of the r/incels to buy Nids now that they're FOTM, it's 100% proof of massive institutionalized incompetence?

Lol, cool story bro.

I don't understand. Through the emperors divine grace we are lucky to be xeons free. Your argument is most cromulent.