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 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Luke82 wrote:
Some people really dont want to read the writing on the wall here.

What writing on the wall? It was the next in the Warhammer Quest line, none of which have been limited releases, and all of which have received expansions in some form or another (BSF moreso than the other two).

At no point was this fiasco in any way predictable nor foreshadowed or even hidden in plain sight.

As others i said I meant the massive clues that this is gone now, not that this was forshadowed... im as perplexed that this happened as well. But it does seem some people are doing some intense wishful thinking that this isnt gone.

Temporarily unavailable; yeah but its coming back
No longer available; yeah but its coming back
Warhammer community directly says its not coming back; yeah but its coming back
Box disappears completely from website; yeah but its coming back

At some point we have to accept that GW pulled a scuzzy trick on everyone (again).

Regarding expansions, don't forget Gw lead times. They usually produce minis 2 years in advance and rules a year in advance. Given that this box was intended to be released in November, any expansion intended to be released within 18 months of the main game would already be completed by now.

I don't see any reason why they would cancel planned expansion support even if they never sell another copy of the base game.
Did Blackstone Fortress ever sell through its first print run?

As 40k is their major cash cow they probably didn't expect Cursed City to sell better than Blackstone. Obviously they are wrong if they thought that.

Gw may want to do a second print run but it's entirely possible there won't be a window for it for months. They have a Necromunda starter set, AoS 3rd edition and maybe a Horus Heresy starter all scheduled for the next few months and they are already struggling to keep up with demand for their regular kits.

It's also entirely possible they have a serious warehouse problem. Maybe there was a covid outbreak or a bunch of stock got damaged or there really was a lot of stock stuck in the Suez canal.

The thing that I think gw don't get is that most customers would be ok if gw just came out and said they weren't sure when the game could come back in stock. Right now it all feels deliberately deceitful.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Luke82 wrote:
Some people really dont want to read the writing on the wall here.

What writing on the wall? It was the next in the Warhammer Quest line, none of which have been limited releases, and all of which have received expansions in some form or another (BSF moreso than the other two).

At no point was this fiasco in any way predictable nor foreshadowed or even hidden in plain sight.

Writing on wall is referring to it not coming back. Not it being foreshadowable.

People still believe it's coming back. But writing is on wall. Best people can hope is models coming back separately(and w/higher price)

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Wild theory - someone was carrying the Forgeworld new guns for AT moulds and the Cursed City moulds - slipped and slid straight into the cabinet that the masters for those models were housed in.

Whilst picking themselves up they knocked a glass off a tabletop which fell onto a PC tower which housed all the data for those models. They then stepped on the back-up external harddrive.

Thus obliterating all data and moulds and masters in one fell swoop.

GW seriously used this exact excuse at least twice in my lifetime (original plastic Battlewagon and a Dwarf Lord which was supposed to be like the third ever plastic single character after the SM Commander and Empire General).

Here's my not super likely, but serious theory. Someone higher up than the usual decision makers made a last minute call to curb what would otherwise be an eternal sequence of cascading delays by, with a heavy heart, axing a large but tertiary pruduct line.

Actually, that does sound like the most likely theory I've heard. That sounds totally reasonable, actually. We know they are behind schedule of where they planned to be. I'm sure all their factory time is booked up. So it's not just a matter of "why not make more of Cursed City because you know you can sell more". It's, will it make more than the thing you'll have to bump? Considering most people that want it already got it so you'll sell less than the first run, and the margins on these big box games probably aren't that high anyway, definitely not. Add in the bonus of also axing the planned expansions to Cursed City to move up more space marines that you know you'll sell a ton of, and it seems like the obvious choice.

Incidentallv this looks to have been november release. That's how much behind we are

tneva82 wrote:
Incidentallv this looks to have been november release. That's how much behind we are

Blackstone Fortress was a mid-November pre-order with a late November release date (from memory), so that would make sense (and tie into likely Christmas gift sales).

via Kirton Games on facebook, but I've seen several other stores reporting similar issues without the picture of the message

this suggests something like a covid outbreak (close the warehouse for a few days, deep clean, wait for staff to be tested and see how many are available to come back in to work)

might not directly feed into this, but who knows maybe a bunch of the senior team went down with it first and no official word is because some of the folk needing to be involved in any official decision are off sick

That has been going on for a few weeks now. I received the message 2 weeks ago for a Piety & Pain box that I had ordered in the 2nd wave. GW finally shipped it out 2 days ago and I received it yesterday (and didn't mark it as shipped until today so there is a delay with updating the system as well).

 Albertorius wrote:

 Arbitrator wrote:

Cronch wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Overread wrote:

jullevi wrote:
If I were GW, I would be tempted to accept the win and move on too. Selling out is not exactly bad for business if the amount of copies sold was enough to turn in massive profit. I think it was.

I mean aside from the backlash they'll get from the community over this.

GW haven't shown themselves to be especially concerned with 'backlash' historically.
ord of maintaining any sort of backlash for longer than the next shiny new release, even if any significant number even care in the first place.

Yeah, what are they going to do about it, NOT buy the newest space marine GW dangles in front of their face? GW has hard data proving they can do whatever they want and their sales will keep rising, a doormat has more backbone than your average GW fan.

And the community have an absolutely appalling rec
Remember the price hike five minutes before 9th was announced? "GW have now priced me out of the hobby and during a pandemic too!" Those claims lasted all of a fly's lifespan before "OMG Indomitus looks GLORIOUS!!! I must pre-order two boxes just for the Primaris!!!"

No doubt they'll put out a Community post saying they've listened and will make Cursed City a Made-to-Order release in the future and people will say it's proof how wonderful Nu!GW is at listening and they'll buy three boxes as thanks or something.

Well, I mean... Indomitus was the last thing I've bought from GW, so...

Exactly, which released post-price hike.

This is from a couple of days ago warning of delays in a couple of weeks

That's only a week delay and I'm sure its likely so that GW can further streamline it for production during Covid times and shifts and changes at their back end. I also know that they were planning on closing their main warehouse at the Nottingham site and opening a bigger newer one so it could be part of that transfer swap over.


That said I'd be shocked if that's the reason to outright cancel any further stock of Cursed City

Chikout wrote:
Regarding expansions, don't forget Gw lead times. They usually produce minis 2 years in advance and rules a year in advance. Given that this box was intended to be released in November, any expansion intended to be released within 18 months of the main game would already be completed by now.

I don't see any reason why they would cancel planned expansion support even if they never sell another copy of the base game.
Did Blackstone Fortress ever sell through its first print run?

As 40k is their major cash cow they probably didn't expect Cursed City to sell better than Blackstone. Obviously they are wrong if they thought that.

Gw may want to do a second print run but it's entirely possible there won't be a window for it for months. They have a Necromunda starter set, AoS 3rd edition and maybe a Horus Heresy starter all scheduled for the next few months and they are already struggling to keep up with demand for their regular kits.

It's also entirely possible they have a serious warehouse problem. Maybe there was a covid outbreak or a bunch of stock got damaged or there really was a lot of stock stuck in the Suez canal.

The thing that I think gw don't get is that most customers would be ok if gw just came out and said they weren't sure when the game could come back in stock. Right now it all feels deliberately deceitful.

That's because it IS deliberately deceitful. GW is known for that. And how could you possibly known Cursed City sold better than Blackstone Fortress? They very likely just made less of it, so they sell out faster. And supporting an extremely limited-time product you could buy for less than ten minutes, with future expansions, said expansions being useless on their own to anyone who doesn't have the original product is just moronic, as all of them are guaranteed to sell less than the original product, which was designed to sell out as fast as possible.

All supplements sell less than main. If selling eqqal would be needing no supplement would ever be made for any game

tneva82 wrote:
All supplements sell less than main. If selling eqqal would be needing no supplement would ever be made for any game

The difference between Blackstone Fortress and Cursed City is that Cursed City will never sell a single unit more and Blackstone Fortress sold over the course of many years, so Blackstone Fortress supplements obviously sold way more than Cursed City supplements would.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
All supplements sell less than main. If selling eqqal would be needing no supplement would ever be made for any game

The difference between Blackstone Fortress and Cursed City is that Cursed City will never sell a single unit more and Blackstone Fortress sold over the course of many years, so Blackstone Fortress supplements obviously sold way more than Cursed City supplements would.

Do we know how many of each was sold?

An interesting video:

https://youtu.be/asg9BjkRpWw

So it seems that the community team were, inadvertently, giving out incorrect information as it was intended to be a limited release.

Also speculation that, sadly, this was Brexit related.

StraightSilver wrote:
An interesting video:

https://youtu.be/asg9BjkRpWw

So it seems that the community team were, inadvertently, giving out incorrect information as it was intended to be a limited release.

Also speculation that, sadly, this was Brexit related.

GW lied and is trying to come up with an excuse to not be seen as liars, like always. I'm sure they will be like: "Oh guys we will do a reprint like Indomitus" as making us a favor. They're just playing us with FOMO and I hate it.

Just another thought, but could Cursed City have been short lived due to Blackstone Fortress being a greater success than expected?

Obviously GW can easily drop these products in favour of their replacement, but Blackstone was running through the worst of this pandemic, which has seen many players isolated - something BSF could cater to better than other GW games. Maybe the demand was so great that they decided to print the core BSF game for a while longer?

Even last year I asked them about the availabilty of BSF, and whether it would make it in time for Christmas, and they were in the process of printing out more copies - which turned up in mid-november. Surely, wouldn't that printing effort be allocated to Cursed City instead as it was the game to take over the Quest reins?

Even now, BSF is only "temporarily out of stock online" and Wayland keeps getting resupplied frequently with 10+ instock.

We are all adults here and we love to play with our plastic dollies but this Cursed box may well frustrate the hell out of most.

I mean you don't hype something for so long and in such detail to only sell it for a few hours and keep people wondering for days of a "normal" restock to only be dumped with a negative.

That is not Fomo, bad communication or incompetence that is borderline trolling.

SamusDrake wrote:
Just another thought, but could Cursed City have been short lived due to Blackstone Fortress being a greater success than expected?

Obviously GW can easily drop these products in favour of their replacement, but Blackstone was running through the worst of this pandemic, which has seen many players isolated - something BSF could cater to better than other GW games. Maybe the demand was so great that they decided to print the core BSF game for a while longer?

Even last year I asked them about the availabilty of BSF, and whether it would make it in time for Christmas, and they were in the process of printing out more copies - which turned up in mid-november. Surely, wouldn't that printing effort be allocated to Cursed City instead as it was the game to take over the Quest reins?

Even now, BSF is only "temporarily out of stock online" and Wayland keeps getting resupplied frequently with 10+ instock.

I kinda see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think that’s the case.

There’s no reason they couldn’t keep both in production. Indeed if memory serves, Hammerhal was still available for some of BSF’s run.

This is why I can only think there is something odd going on here. If BSF still has a market, why wouldn’t Cursed City? It’s not one or the other.

As an aside.
Where do these things come from. No one knows these things but they always come up like it’s a thing.

“Apparently they had enough copies for 3-6 months but it all sold on preorder.”

“And apparently this was due out in November and we are five months behind production now” (after a total factory shutdown of somewhere between 4-6 months, but quick paced releases for a few months for catching up)

Luke82 wrote:
As others i said I meant the massive clues that this is gone now, not that this was forshadowed

Ah. Fair enough then.

Luke82 wrote:
Temporarily unavailable; yeah but its coming back
No longer available; yeah but its coming back
Warhammer community directly says its not coming back; yeah but its coming back
Box disappears completely from website; yeah but its coming back

To be fair, the Warhammer Community team could tell me that Guilliman rose from stasis to lead a new crusade throughout the Imperium and I'd ask for a second opinion.

I just can't fathom releasing this game without planning expansions similar to BSF.

Something obviously went badly wrong. You don't make these expensive premium sculpts, tons of exclusive artwork, an entire website, a newsletter and then mention expansions within the rulebook only to do a very limited run where you sell very little actual units of a product that is only going to people who already buy your stuff.

Saying this is a ploy and exploiting FOMO severely misunderstands basic business and also how GW production works, as well as how they actually make money. The sheer investment on Cursed City was probably gigantic; too much for it to sell a couple hundred copies and then disappear forever.

Danny76 wrote:
As an aside.
Where do these things come from. No one knows these things but they always come up like it’s a thing.

“Apparently they had enough copies for 3-6 months but it all sold on preorder.”

“And apparently this was due out in November and we are five months behind production now” (after a total factory shutdown of somewhere between 4-6 months, but quick paced releases for a few months for catching up)

The 3-6 months comes from (informal / off-the-record) comments from GW retail staff - it's what they claim they were told. The November thing is apparently from their AoS rules - the points are dated November 2020.

 Bosskelot wrote:
Something obviously went badly wrong. You don't make these expensive premium sculpts, tons of exclusive artwork, an entire website, a newsletter and then mention expansions within the rulebook only to do a very limited run where you sell very little actual units of a product that is only going to people who already buy your stuff.

Saying this is a ploy and exploiting FOMO severely misunderstands basic business and also how GW production works, as well as how they actually make money. The sheer investment on Cursed City was probably gigantic; too much for it to sell a couple hundred copies and then disappear forever.

The sculpts aren't "premium", if anything they're basic compared to the usual GW flaming-cheeto-cloud sculpts main games get. The artwork on the tiles and in the book also looks like dime a dozen deviantart artwork. There's nothing "premium" about this product except marketing.

beast_gts wrote:

Danny76 wrote:
As an aside.
Where do these things come from. No one knows these things but they always come up like it’s a thing.

“Apparently they had enough copies for 3-6 months but it all sold on preorder.”

“And apparently this was due out in November and we are five months behind production now” (after a total factory shutdown of somewhere between 4-6 months, but quick paced releases for a few months for catching up)

The 3-6 months comes from (informal / off-the-record) comments from GW retail staff - it's what they claim they were told. The November thing is apparently from their AoS rules - the points are dated November 2020.

Ok, both circumstantial and anecdotal.

We’ve had rules dated in the past a while before released. Particularly as they were done by a different team, they will have done it whenever suits them and they got the models given to start working on etc..

Regarding GW staff being told things, all over this thread people are arguing both sides of the discussion using stuff they said as evidence.
And we know from past that they know little in reality. Staffers on here have said as much.

But, good to know where it’s coming from..

 Bosskelot wrote:
Something obviously went badly wrong. You don't make these expensive premium sculpts, tons of exclusive artwork, an entire website, a newsletter and then mention expansions within the rulebook only to do a very limited run where you sell very little actual units of a product that is only going to people who already buy your stuff.

Saying this is a ploy and exploiting FOMO severely misunderstands basic business and also how GW production works, as well as how they actually make money. The sheer investment on Cursed City was probably gigantic; too much for it to sell a couple hundred copies and then disappear forever.

GW must be the least fortunate company in the world given how often things go badly wrong for them then.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I kinda see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think that’s the case.

There’s no reason they couldn’t keep both in production. Indeed if memory serves, Hammerhal was still available for some of BSF’s run.

This is why I can only think there is something odd going on here. If BSF still has a market, why wouldn’t Cursed City? It’s not one or the other.

If it weren't for the long delay on releases, I'd agree.

For example, this week's Titanicus preorders feel like they should have been christmas releases.

And as for this weeks preorders, Wayland have given all the GW releases a warning, which I've not seen before; "This product will have limited stock at release but will be restocked at a later date to fulfil all orders." It honestly sounds like GW are struggling to the point where they have to make hard decisions to continue a game.

 Bosskelot wrote:
Something obviously went badly wrong. You don't make these expensive premium sculpts, tons of exclusive artwork, an entire website, a newsletter and then mention expansions within the rulebook only to do a very limited run where you sell very little actual units of a product that is only going to people who already buy your stuff.

Saying this is a ploy and exploiting FOMO severely misunderstands basic business and also how GW production works, as well as how they actually make money. The sheer investment on Cursed City was probably gigantic; too much for it to sell a couple hundred copies and then disappear forever.

Ah yes the horrible, horrible investment of a few molds, plastic worth 5 pounds and a bunch of cardboards.

Danny76 wrote:
As an aside.
Where do these things come from. No one knows these things but they always come up like it’s a thing.

“Apparently they had enough copies for 3-6 months but it all sold on preorder.”

“And apparently this was due out in November and we are five months behind production now” (after a total factory shutdown of somewhere between 4-6 months, but quick paced releases for a few months for catching up)

November thing comes from points being marked correct as of novembei 2020


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
Something obviously went badly wrong. You don't make these expensive premium sculpts, tons of exclusive artwork, an entire website, a newsletter and then mention expansions within the rulebook only to do a very limited run where you sell very little actual units of a product that is only going to people who already buy your stuff.

Saying this is a ploy and exploiting FOMO severely misunderstands basic business and also how GW production works, as well as how they actually make money. The sheer investment on Cursed City was probably gigantic; too much for it to sell a couple hundred copies and then disappear forever.

Ah yes the horrible, horrible investment of a few molds, plastic worth 5 pounds and a bunch of cardboards.

Molds costing easily 6 digits. And yes obviously gw is paying zero wages to workers