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We have the choices of:

1. Incompetence. Utter stupidity in production, considering the number of releases this company has overseen and the notion of long term sales ensuring you can't overproduce.
2. A plan to cut the indy stores from getting the benefits of a new release. Ensuring they get their stock after the initial boom.
Or
3. A long term plan to remove the indy stores from the equation and encourage either the indy stores to get sick of them and cut the cord, or the indy stores to die off, a'la the dreamed extinction of online stores.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
We have the choices of:

1. Incompetence. Utter stupidity in production, considering the number of releases this company has overseen and the notion of long term sales ensuring you can't overproduce.
2. A plan to cut the indy stores from getting the benefits of a new release. Ensuring they get their stock after the initial boom.
Or
3. A long term plan to remove the indy stores from the equation and encourage either the indy stores to get sick of them and cut the cord, or the indy stores to die off, a'la the dreamed extinction of online stores.

4. Something went wrong that no one could anticipate. Force majeure and all that.

Its a conspiracy MAAAANN! They know you know and i know that they know you know. you know maaaan. They are just trying to trick you into thinking that they don't know what you know but they know. it all starts with a delayed release and next thing you know they will be dragging local game shop owners out into the streets to publicly execute them. And if you ever ordered anything from their website they have your address and will do the same to you, because they hate being a business and making a crap ton of money for little plastic toys.
OR maybe Terry the wharehouse guy just misplaced a decimal somewhere in some paperwork. who knows.

Gitzbitah wrote:
GW may not just be thinking of the short term here. (If you think I'm a Tinfoil wearing conspiracy theorist before this post, you might as well stop here before I whip out my armadillo hats for you) consider what a pattern of releases like this will do to the eager release day customer. You cannot get product at brick and mortar stores, and secondary retailers are more delayed than GW itself. Therefore in the future if I wish to get product at release, I'd better go to GW or be delayed a week or maybe more!

So now, those individuals who want love the army and want to use it as soon as possible will believe they need to order from GW personally, and as soon as pre-orders are posted. This will serve to increase GW's profit margin per release by increasing the number of direct sales.


If this is calculated, it is a cunning and evil move. I find that more likely than GW underestimating the popularity of its own products, but judge as you will. Time will show what is aberration and what is their common practice.

Thats pretty accurate.

I looked over at the Tau rumour thread to see if this popped up there and a bunch of people were saying things to the effect of "I better get down to my GW and buy it before it runs out!". I just shook my head, waiting 2 weeks isnt the end of the world, but to an irrational person they need it now.

Well, Games Workshop DID release nearly triple the amount of miniatures for Warhammer 40K Jan-Apr 2013 than they did in the same period in previous years. Not even considering Fantasy or The Hobbit.

Hard to imagine a company ramping up production like that without some hick-ups along the way.

Doesn't change that they let independents bear the brunt of the costs for their cock-up.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Question for you.

Have GW, fairly often, behaved in a way which could be described using the following terms; Adversarial, Conspiratorial, Arrogant, Bullish, Incompetent, Paranoid, Bullying?

By framing the issue in terms like this, you're nearly guaranteed to make GW look bad-- just as it would be ridiculous to start a thread that said "Have GW often behaved in a way which could be described using the following terms: "Gracious," "Helpful," "Accomodating," "Generous?"" and then listing off a bunch of the things that we all know GW does right (customer service, sending people free kits when a single sprue gets messed up, stores letting people paint stuff using their supplies, etc.). When you start with a biased premise, you end up with a biased conclusion.

 filbert wrote:
Here's what is baffling me about this all and what I find difficult to reconcile:

1) If it is pure oversight and mistake then it would appear to be the first time GW have ever screwed up in this manner - I certainly can't remember them mishandling a release in this manner in all the years I have been wargaming. Are we to believe that a professional company with decades of experience could bugger up a release this badly?

2) If you aren't inclined to believe it is a simple mistake then the other option that is left is that it has been somehow done by design but if that were the case surely they would have made sure there own stores and webstore were fully stocked and that stock was 'delayed' to FLGS/internet discounters only? As it stands, it seems that the GW webstore is out of stock and some GW stores are low on stock so if we are to believe this is some Machiavellian plan to surreptitiously wage war on FLGS then it smacks a little of GW cutting off their nose to spite their face. Don't get me wrong; I am in no doubt that they would quite happily crush all indy sellers - I just don't see them doing it at their own expense.

I am leaning more towards the mistake hypothesis but I just am having difficulty believing that they would under-estimate demand on such a large and wide scale. Of course, they may well have thought that Tau wouldn't sell as well as other lines but this seems to be a complete breakdown in the supply chain.

They had some shortages in the U.S. with the 6th ed. rulebooks just last year.

 Baldsmug wrote:
Its a conspiracy MAAAANN! They know you know and i know that they know you know. you know maaaan. They are just trying to trick you into thinking that they don't know what you know but they know. it all starts with a delayed release and next thing you know they will be dragging local game shop owners out into the streets to publicly execute them. And if you ever ordered anything from their website they have your address and will do the same to you, because they hate being a business and making a crap ton of money for little plastic toys.
OR maybe Terry the wharehouse guy just misplaced a decimal somewhere in some paperwork. who knows.

Is this the same terry he warehouse guy who misplaced a couple pallet loads of space hulk a few years back? If so then you know he got promoted due to his resourcefulness in finding more product to sell right?

This is not something unforeseen where product was delayed due to shipping errors.

It can only be an intentional ploy to sell out early, or....

An attempt to screw the flgs stores.

Anything beyond that (or including it as well) should have an big investors concerened that the upper management is incompetent and should be removed. Kirby is not the only problem at GW, he's just the guy who is paid way too much and not fixing them.

I played( past tense) both fantasy and 40k, collected tens of thousands of dollars worth of their stuff over 20+ years, but now just play bloodbowl with stuff I have or third party product. Not completing my marine chapter bothers me, but it's the shenanigans like this and what GW has done to the black library that force me away. done with my rant, cue GW white knight in 5 4 3 2....

Whilst I in no way think there is any conspiracy going on here, I do think this boils down to how GW release things these days. Go back to month in advance preorders, and things would be alot more manageable.

Occam's Razor says the simplest solution is usually the correct one. GW screwed up. It happens. Worldwide logistics is a fickle beast, and can bite you in the ass.

I think they want the LGS's of the world to cease operation. Shame, because nowadays that's about the only places we can game anymore. GW's are pretty small now. 2 tables in most stores with a 3rd covered in models. Either that are have your own table in your basement which I'm a fan of. Beer and pretzels all the way!!

My FLGS (in Michigan) store just called me, pre ordered models are delayed until after April 16th. Codex should arrive this weekend though.

Theophony wrote:

 Baldsmug wrote:
Its a conspiracy MAAAANN! They know you know and i know that they know you know. you know maaaan. They are just trying to trick you into thinking that they don't know what you know but they know. it all starts with a delayed release and next thing you know they will be dragging local game shop owners out into the streets to publicly execute them. And if you ever ordered anything from their website they have your address and will do the same to you, because they hate being a business and making a crap ton of money for little plastic toys.
OR maybe Terry the wharehouse guy just misplaced a decimal somewhere in some paperwork. who knows.

Is this the same terry he warehouse guy who misplaced a couple pallet loads of space hulk a few years back? If so then you know he got promoted due to his resourcefulness in finding more product to sell right?

This is not something unforeseen where product was delayed due to shipping errors.

It can only be an intentional ploy to sell out early, or....

An attempt to screw the flgs stores.

Anything beyond that (or including it as well) should have an big investors concerened that the upper management is incompetent and should be removed. Kirby is not the only problem at GW, he's just the guy who is paid way too much and not fixing them.

I played( past tense) both fantasy and 40k, collected tens of thousands of dollars worth of their stuff over 20+ years, but now just play bloodbowl with stuff I have or third party product. Not completing my marine chapter bothers me, but it's the shenanigans like this and what GW has done to the black library that force me away. done with my rant, cue GW white knight in 5 4 3 2....

HERE I COME TO SAVE THE DAAAAAY!!!!! By White Knight do you mean a rational person who doesn't soil themselves everytime a toy company does something they don't understand and/or agree with? If so I would like my horse and armor now please. I plan to use it to run around saving damsels in distress while i wait for the madness to die down before i buy me some new Tau stuff right off the shelf from my favorite local game store.

 filbert wrote:
Here's what is baffling me about this all and what I find difficult to reconcile:

1) If it is pure oversight and mistake then it would appear to be the first time GW have ever screwed up in this manner - I certainly can't remember them mishandling a release in this manner in all the years I have been wargaming. Are we to believe that a professional company with decades of experience could bugger up a release this badly?

You're forgetting that GW, in all those "decades of experience" have never put out nearly those amount of miniatures they currently do. They tripled the amount of Warhammer 40K miniatures released Jan-April compared to 2012.

Take any company you like, with "decades of experience" producing the stuff they produce. Than have them triple their production. Mistakes will happen.

GW pulled this stunt with Space Hulk, they shipped about 10% of the orders to independant distributors then claimed that they were "sold out" meanwhile they had ample levels of stock in store for months afterwards. I checked with my distributor and they have nothing in stock save for older kits, none of the new kits are available. They also did this with the Grey Knights release, other than a very small token alotment general stock wasn't available to distributors until 2-3 weeks after the release date.

What this translates into GW intentionally shorting independants to drive customers to their bunkers and retail locations. Once the inital surge of release day purchases have passed they'll get around to shipping to distributors in a couple weeks. On paper it makes GW's internal sales look amazing. By keeping sales in house they see the lions share of the profits and it also serves as a temporay barrier to discount sellers. But that move costs FLGS a huge amount of sales due to the wait involved as most gamers want the releases the first several days of the army coming out.

It's within their "right" to create false shortages to pad their in store release numbers but it's very distatsteful and isn't creating any good will with the FLGS. It's another example of how their business strategy seems to be drive people exclusively to GW retail and put yet another knife in the back of the FLGS that made our game so popular in the US.

With the new retailer terms excluding stores from selling to bits opperations I'm not sure how much more chain yanking can occur before they find FLGS finally dropping GW as their mainstay line. GW's attempt to establish market control is proving to be more of a choking deathgrip and the independant retailers are the ones being squeezed. Considering they account for the greater portion of sales within the US I think they are playing with fire and something is bound to give way very soon.

Wow, people really get worked up about a 2 week delay. All you need is the codex! You can wait two weeks for the models. Seriously, its not that big of a deal. And what FLGS only stays in business because of Tau? FLGS are full of people that drop hundreds on freaking cards and comic books. The small amount of GW they sell is probably more trouble then its worth.

GW has been releasing a lot of new models and codexes lately and they couldn't get enough Tau done in time. Not to mention Tau are a popular army that probably attracted a bunch of new players. There could have been any number of delays in production or distribution. I work in the logistics field and so many little things can cause delays.

Calm down, take a deep breath, take the tin foil hat off, and read your new codex. Figure out what is worth buying then spend your money. Proxy until the stuff gets here. No one is going to die because their new riptide or Farsight model will be two weeks late.

 Davespil wrote:
Wow, people really get worked up about a 2 week delay. All you need is the codex! You can wait two weeks for the models. Seriously, its not that big of a deal. And what FLGS only stays in business because of Tau? FLGS are full of people that drop hundreds on freaking cards and comic books. The small amount of GW they sell is probably more trouble then its worth.

GW has been releasing a lot of new models and codexes lately and they couldn't get enough Tau done in time. Not to mention Tau are a popular army that probably attracted a bunch of new players. There could have been any number of delays in production or distribution. I work in the logistics field and so many little things can cause delays.

Calm down, take a deep breath, take the tin foil hat off, and read your new codex. Figure out what is worth buying then spend your money. Proxy until the stuff gets here. No one is going to die because their new riptide or Farsight model will be two weeks late.

Yes, many of us do get upset over a two week wait. Especially those of us with stores.

We spend time and effort to promote GW products. We have to give them a spot in our store, agree to keep a certain amount of stuff in stock, and lots of other little things you can see within their trade terms.

That work is wasted if we can't get the product and GW's own stores have it in stock. If no one had it, no big deal. But that isn't the case here. A few stores get some. Most get nothing. GW stores got their stuff shipped out last week. They are not affected at all and are ready to take your money.

As is, I will be losing hundreds of dollars in sales. GW failed to hold up their end of the bargain.

 mikhaila wrote:
Most get nothing. GW stores got their stuff shipped out last week. They are not affected at all and are ready to take your money.

As is, I will be losing hundreds of dollars in sales. GW failed to hold up their end of the bargain.

This is the key point that people are missing.

The FLGS's will not be getting the initial release buys from people that have been waiting eagerly for Tau to get an update. The GW stores are.

Whether by plan or by screw-up, this means guys like Mike will be missing hundreds of $$$ in sales that GW is happy to handle.

This is some kind of major conspiracy to screw the FLGS owner among other things is what I am getting out of this topic.

Maybe it's a conspiracy or maybe, just maybe? A massive company made a mistake.

I have been playing tau since their original release, and I had hundreds of dollars of preorders from my flgs. I just got a call from them letting me know the codex will be there but everything else is back ordered until at least next week.

I'll still be buying my tau from my flgs. I'm not going to rage quit GW, but I am pretty peeved at the delay. It's either poor planning or a lousy ploy to get more sales from GW brick and mortar locations...

 mikhaila wrote:

 Davespil wrote:
Wow, people really get worked up about a 2 week delay. All you need is the codex! You can wait two weeks for the models. Seriously, its not that big of a deal. And what FLGS only stays in business because of Tau? FLGS are full of people that drop hundreds on freaking cards and comic books. The small amount of GW they sell is probably more trouble then its worth.

GW has been releasing a lot of new models and codexes lately and they couldn't get enough Tau done in time. Not to mention Tau are a popular army that probably attracted a bunch of new players. There could have been any number of delays in production or distribution. I work in the logistics field and so many little things can cause delays.

Calm down, take a deep breath, take the tin foil hat off, and read your new codex. Figure out what is worth buying then spend your money. Proxy until the stuff gets here. No one is going to die because their new riptide or Farsight model will be two weeks late.

Yes, many of us do get upset over a two week wait. Especially those of us with stores.

We spend time and effort to promote GW products. We have to give them a spot in our store, agree to keep a certain amount of stuff in stock, and lots of other little things you can see within their trade terms.

That work is wasted if we can't get the product and GW's own stores have it in stock. If no one had it, no big deal. But that isn't the case here. A few stores get some. Most get nothing. GW stores got their stuff shipped out last week. They are not affected at all and are ready to take your money.

As is, I will be losing hundreds of dollars in sales. GW failed to hold up their end of the bargain.

My hat goes off to you mikhaila,

I have worked in a flgs twenty years ago right after high school. I understand what small business owners face, and how you've handled yourself online hear just shows how respectable you are.

Is there anything in the terms and agreements that you can fall back on? If your not allowed o talk about it I understand, feel free to pm me so as not to go off topic.

As to people getting upset because of the delays...

Flgs need each of their lines to produce in order to stay in business and competitive, if they aren't getting defensive, then their doing it wrong.

People who game at local stores should be offended that they have to wait or go into the local GW and be treated less satisfactorily than at their favorite hang out. It's not about the inconvenience it's about the ethics behind the decisions to me.

Will I buy bloodbowl when it comes out this fall like the rumors say? Yes. Will I buy direct from GW? Only if it is GW exclusive, even then I'll give the local lgs a chance.

Returning to my desk with my tinfoil hat.

I guess we are just spoiled in this area. We have a few really great stores and none of them are GWs and all of them have fairly loyal customers who will gladly wait the extra 2 weeks for their stuff. What i just don't get is why people NEED to buy all of the models the second they come out. I guess its because i am so new to this hobby that i have trouble wrapping my mind around it. Also most of our FLGS offer discount prices so there really is no reason to buy from anywhere else.

Well my local GW store does not seem to have been able to get all the stock they were expecting either

I'm sure GW stores got more of what they asked for, but even so it looks like there just arn't enough kits to go round.

Whether that's under-estimating demand, manufacturing screw up, transport screw up or just the sheer volume of releases catching up with them who knows

(or even an evil-empire style conspiricy)

I'll facinated to see the the pace of releases keeps up (especially as none of the forthcoming stuff is oficial yet, it could be delayed)

 mikhaila wrote:
Yes, many of us do get upset over a two week wait. Especially those of us with stores.

We spend time and effort to promote GW products. We have to give them a spot in our store, agree to keep a certain amount of stuff in stock, and lots of other little things you can see within their trade terms.

That work is wasted if we can't get the product and GW's own stores have it in stock. If no one had it, no big deal. But that isn't the case here. A few stores get some. Most get nothing. GW stores got their stuff shipped out last week. They are not affected at all and are ready to take your money.

As is, I will be losing hundreds of dollars in sales. GW failed to hold up their end of the bargain.

1.) In Germany, FLGS including independents got all tau stuff already, they ordered last week. No problem, no shortage AFAIK.
2.) If you need a refill of stock here, you order next Monday as usual and get your stuff Thursday as usual (that's what the official announcement says, the "one to two weeks" is just the lowest delay message).
3.) Officially there is no shortage in North America.
So I don't know where your special situation comes from. It certainly is not the normal situation. Maybe ask your sales rep.

BTW there have been shortages in the past, like Grey Knight boxes etc.

 IdentifyZero wrote:
This is some kind of major conspiracy to screw the FLGS owner among other things is what I am getting out of this topic.

Maybe it's a conspiracy or maybe, just maybe? A massive company made a mistake.

I don't think conspiracy. I think incompetence.

A massive company has incompetent people setting their production numbers, and doesn't care enough to make sure they make enough product to sell to the stores that carry their product.

In the past GW had a huge stock of new releases ready to go. This past year they have been selling out of many things, and not keeping enough stock in the US. We've had trouble with both Chaos Space Marines and the Demons release. I've never had a problem before giving GW my money. They simply aren't worried about keeping in enough stock to fill demand for Trade accounts. In many cases, they don't even allocate any of a release to us, like the flyers book.

Understand that they stuck trade accounts at the back of the bus. GW stores got product. Mail order got their product. There was a little bit left, they shipped to a few stores..and its gone.

The pie was cut up and gone before they got to us.

 Baldsmug wrote:
I guess we are just spoiled in this area. We have a few really great stores and none of them are GWs and all of them have fairly loyal customers who will gladly wait the extra 2 weeks for their stuff. What i just don't get is why people NEED to buy all of the models the second they come out. I guess its because i am so new to this hobby that i have trouble wrapping my mind around it. Also most of our FLGS offer discount prices so there really is no reason to buy from anywhere else.

One of the local flgs carry GW, but only a little as they cater to magic, comics and Yugio. It doesn't help that the next closest store has 10% off GW all the time and dedicated gaming tables, nights, and employees who live to game. The next closest location is miniature markets brick and mortar store (so heavily discounted). I don't understand the need to have it right away either, but the fact that they took the flgs out of the picture by not sending enough/any product is what has my dander up. By doing this they hope they can deal with those pesky flgs that take away their profits, hopefully your area is strong enough to deal with this and the stores survive. I have seen a lot of stores in my area dry up over the years. A few because of poor management, but I'd hate too see anyone be out because of a greedy company that intentionally shoots its supporters in the foot.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
Yes, many of us do get upset over a two week wait. Especially those of us with stores.

We spend time and effort to promote GW products. We have to give them a spot in our store, agree to keep a certain amount of stuff in stock, and lots of other little things you can see within their trade terms.

That work is wasted if we can't get the product and GW's own stores have it in stock. If no one had it, no big deal. But that isn't the case here. A few stores get some. Most get nothing. GW stores got their stuff shipped out last week. They are not affected at all and are ready to take your money.

As is, I will be losing hundreds of dollars in sales. GW failed to hold up their end of the bargain.

1.) In Germany, FLGS including independents got all tau stuff already, they ordered last week. No problem, no shortage AFAIK.
2.) If you need a refill of stock here, you order next Monday as usual and get your stuff Thursday as usual (that's what the official announcement says, the "one to two weeks" is just the lowest delay message).
3.) Officially there is no shortage in North America.
So I don't know where your special situation comes from. It certainly is not the normal situation. Maybe ask your sales rep.

BTW there have been shortages in the past, like Grey Knight boxes etc.

Kroothawk- Who do you think is telling US stores their orders are cancelled? My sales rep at GW called today to inform me of it. The invoice in my email confirms it. No Tau models.
I spent an hour on the phone with him. More time getting calls from other retailers who all got the same call.

It's official as hell. And not a 'special case'.

Well, my local indy got all it wanted with no problems. Did the rep also confirm the 2 weeks wait? As in Europe something else is official.

Here a post from the other tau thread:

tidalwake wrote:Just got told by my local store (independent retailer, not a GW store) that GW oversold the new Tau stuff and does not have enough plastics to fill orders. He will have the Codex and Finecast, but wasn't even given an ETA on the plastics. I saw the post from the EU yesterday and had a bad feeling it might happen here as well.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Well, my local indy got all it wanted with no problems. Did the rep also confirm the 2 weeks wait? As in Europe something else is official.

Here a post from the other tau thread:

tidalwake wrote:Just got told by my local store (independent retailer, not a GW store) that GW oversold the new Tau stuff and does not have enough plastics to fill orders. He will have the Codex and Finecast, but wasn't even given an ETA on the plastics. I saw the post from the EU yesterday and had a bad feeling it might happen here as well.

They won't confirm anything. It's going to be "weeks", and they don't want to say more than that.

I got all I wanted as well...Monday morning. Wednesday they called to say we aren't getting anything but books. My order was one of the first orders placed. But they fill orders for the stores further away first. Some us stores on 3-4 day ship got stock. Everyone else gets to wait unil they make more and ship it from the UK.

I spoke to the guy at my FLGS today and it sounds like they'll have some Tau stuff. They don't order very much. Most of their business is magic (everytime I hear that I expect someone to pull a rabbit out of a hat), comics, flames of war, and that other minatures game that I always forget the name of. They don't keep the store stocked with GW products and only order it if someone needs it. And they provide a great discount.

If nothing comes in then I wait 2 weeks. The point of my post was for all those freaking out they they weren't gonna get their models for two weeks and were talking about quitting 40K. The important thing is the codex. You don't need the specific models to play.

Also, I still think GW made a mistake or were running behind due to all of the other releases. gak happens. I'm sure they won't make the same mistake again. And if they do then we know what their intentions are and we can act accordingly.