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Polonius wrote:I don't buy this for no other reason than his explanation about having to take an army off the shelves for every army added. 40k hasn't had a new army since Daemonhunters (sort of) or the Tau (in actuality). Yes, Daeomnos are a new playable army, but the models have always been there. That whole thing sounds bogus.

Well, to be fair, shelf space is a limited commodity. For example, notice how there are no more "Black Templar" or "Dark Angels" command squads anymore. It's because they are essentially the same thing with a different sprue. With GW's decision to do everything in plastic, and have a squad box for each unit type, you have to clean out some of the SKU's so you have room to put everything on the shelf.

List of things that have a box that used to not have a box. (Note the top three are the oldest on the list)
- Tau Army
- Demonhunters
- Witchhunters
- Eldar Aspect Warriors
- Eldar Autarch
- Nurgle Demon Prince (who is now gone)
- Soul Grinder
- Space Marine Vindicator
- Ork Battlewagon
- Space Marine Venerable Dreadnought
- Space Marine Ironclad Dreadnought
- Space Marine Drop Pod
- Space Marine Assault Terminators

And lets not forget all the new terrain

So just looking at the list above, there are alot of things that are on the shelf now that didn't use to be on the shelf. Even taking note that some of the boxsets are the smaller boxes, they still used to not be in a box at all. Then look at the range and see what things are still taking up extra space that can be consolidated.

- Space Wolf Grey Hunters
- Space Wolf Blood Claws
- Space Wolf Venerable Dreadnought

These are essentially just Marine boxes with an extra sprue, and the Space Wolf dread is still metal. Consolidate all those into one box of "Space Wolves" with a vehicle upgrade sprue like Dark Angels and Blood Angels, and you just gave yourself two more boxes worth of room. Also, you can more reliably sell a generic box of 10 marines with a wolf sprue than knowing how many "Grey Hunters" or "Blood Claws" boxes you need to produce and stock.

So while I wouldn't take everything the guy said at face value, I'd definetely disagree that shelf space/SKU reconciliation doesn't play any influence into GW's thinking.

Polonius wrote:Shelf space is a commodity, but the 1 to 1 army exchange is overly simplistic. First off, LotR is eating more and more shelf space, while specialist games now get nothing. So the situation is pretty fluid.

Yea, but it's been an awful long time since Specialist Games got anything. I would bet that all the new terrain (CoD and Planetstrike) fit right where Specialist stuff may have been. Also, I forgot the Valkyrie, Baneblade and Stompa!

And I think we should stop calling it "Shelf Space" and talk about SKU's instead. A store can very easily find more room to put stuff, but additional SKU's represent Inventory Control problems that tie in with production/shipping/sales, etc.

Alpharius wrote:I'm tempted to edit the title to add "about Dark Eldar" in so we can get J.H.D.D. to pop by!

DO IT!