Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

even after apocalypse i think that people "buying" into the fad would want to play more points even if they don't use the rules.

Based on pre-orders at my FLGS (and they are requiring 30% down, to make sure they don't get stuck with as much unclaimed), the army deals are very popular.

I know I'm tempted by that tide o' spawn, and I don't even play 40K.

Well, it took me almost 6 years to finish painting my Necrons - and I'll be lucky to finish painting my new Eldar army by 2010.  There is no way I'm getting more stuff for Apocalypse, so I don't think I am the type of gamer GW is targeting with this release.

However, would it be worthwhile for me to buy some of the discounted sets, break them apart, and sell them for a profit on Ebay?  I know some people buy a bunch of Battle For Macragge boxes, and sell the individual parts for much more than the cost of the set....  I wonder if there will be a second market on Ebay for items "without box"....

Mez

It's simply an "end of the year" cash grab. They're trying to have Christmas early.

nothing more, nothing less.

only thing i'm really interested in is the Imperial City. and if my local indy store can't get it (and give me a 20% discount) I won't bother with getting 2 more. I already have one... I'm just a terrain whore...

I'm ebaying a large portion of my collection now to pay off Credit Cards. I don't really need anything else. I picked up a few new rhinos for my CSM but that's it. I'll get some things here and there once I'm in a better position... (but I'm not sure there is one when you're staring down divorce)

whatever.... the "love and optimism" responses from the fanboys have been amusing...

Yakface said:

"Who knows if this trend will continue after the Apoc boxes are long gone? Perhaps if these sets sell well they will start making more of their boxed sets actual deals?  Apocalypse is an attempt to get people to buy lots and lots of miniatures. However, many veteran players already have plenty of points in their collections to play Apocalypse games without buying a single miniature.
Therefore GW decided to include the 'formation' rules in Apocalypse to try to entice players to get even more models in order to field a whole formation. By having a discounted box set for formations, GW really offers enticement to players who already have plenty of models but want to field a particular formation because they like the way it looks or plays in Apocalypse."

Short Answer:  Yes.

Stecal said:

"GW is still making money on these deals, gobs of it. GW long ago recoupsed the cost of creating these old plastic model sprues and except for $ 1-2 of plastic and Chinese labor these are effectively like printing money for GW. they even save on the packaging since everything is stuffed into a big generic box."

LOL, someone doesn't work in the metal or game industries.  Every single sentence in that paragraph is wrong.  If you think the biggest expense in shipping is packaging, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. 

Tinfoil said:

"Apocalypse amounts to a major shift in GW's business and marketing strategies. The company hopes to
a) significantly escalate the scale of armies involved in games (and thus the size of sales to individual customers);
b) thereby recoup the revenues they "lose" by lowering prices;
c) (possibly) attract new customers."

Only sort of.  Many players these days will build a 1500 point 40k list and stop, keeping only the viable tournament units in it and get rid of the rest.  The game has, in some ways, become tournament oriented, and this expansion is clearly the reverse.  You can liken it to no one wants to go past a certain points limit because there's no reason to get that many models. 

Yakface's second post is spot on. 

George Spigott said:

"Secondly it attacks online retailers (who GW hate and loathe) as the discount they give on one box of multiple models will be less than the discount on many separate models. Thirdly when the Apocalypse fuss blows over in a year or so and when Apocalypse armies are no longer legal (in perhaps two or so years) the mass of models will kill the EBay second hand market (as is the case with LotR at the moment) if people think they will get nothing for their second hand figs then they will not attempt to sell them."

I got a bit of a chuckle on this one.  Business do things that make business sense, although sometimes it takes a long time for a company to understand that what was business sense isn't business sense.  Companies do not do things for hate.  You seriously think all that work and effort is simply to attack online retailers and kill Ebay?  On top of that, apocalypse will not kill Ebay.  There will always be a market for cheap, used 2nd hand stuff. 

D. Thunder's post is spot on.  I agree with the advertising bit too.

Therion's post is also spot on. 

Orlanth said:  "Secondly, Apocalypse is based on poor standards, good to police massed bring and battles between store kids. But store kids arent in buying 5000pt armies unless daddy is very rich."

Apocalypse is clearly not for the kids.  Baneblades and forgeworld stuff is clearly not for kids.  Sadly I'm certain some red shirts will try to sell apocalypse to kids, but they should know better.  Oh, and there isn't a problem with people getting stuff for normal sized armies by splitting it with their buddies.  Heck, I think that's a good thing for the game as a whole. 

Kotrin said:

"Apocalypse is an experiment, a one-shot attempt to see how will perform the alternate business model for GW - rebate on bulk. They stopped it years ago and it did not help much.

Believe me, they'll check more closely than ever how many army deal they sell, as well of the number of Apocalypse rulebooks purchased. Now, if it works, it will not only bring fresh money in the coffins but also tell a strong message to the management: stop the elitist, pricey gaming and produce plenty. Since GW moved to plastics, they are ready to try different things now.

Moreover, only GW can bring something like Apocalypse; it helps them mark some difference with an ever-growing competition. And cutting the price of products has always been a good way to ruin it."

Yes.  I would also like to point out that if Apocalypse does poorly GW will not try bulk units at a discount again. 

Asmodai said:

"My (conspiracy) theory?

"Apocalypse is to boost 4th quarter earnings and turnover, thus improving the stock price and the amount Kirby et al. will get when they sell the company shortly after."

That isn't possible.  Apocalypse was planned way before the latest financial report came out.  It's an amusing statement though. 

Apocalypse was in fact planned for around Christmas.  Come on, it's a game!  The toy and game industries are affected more by the holiday rush after Black Friday than any other industry. 

Posted By scuddman on 09/02/2007 1:56 AM

I got a bit of a chuckle on this one.  Business do things that make business sense, although sometimes it takes a long time for a company to understand that what was business sense isn't business sense.  Companies do not do things for hate.  You seriously think all that work and effort is simply to attack online retailers and kill Ebay?  On top of that, apocalypse will not kill Ebay.  There will always be a market for cheap, used 2nd hand stuff. 

You appear to be arguing with my crazy tinfoil hat theory, you should not do that, and the reason for this is contained in the phrase 'crazy tinfoil hat theory'.

"However, would it be worthwhile for me to buy some of the discounted sets, break them apart, and sell them for a profit on Ebay?"

I was thinking that too actually.. but I think there's a lot of folks out there who will be planning to do it too... so if you really want to buy then ebay I'd say buy then wait a year then ebay

Posted By Necros on 09/02/2007 6:28 AM
"However, would it be worthwhile for me to buy some of the discounted sets, break them apart, and sell them for a profit on Ebay?"

I was thinking that too actually.. but I think there's a lot of folks out there who will be planning to do it too... so if you really want to buy then ebay I'd say buy then wait a year then ebay

Seems like a lot of work to make four or five dollars a vehicle.  Land Raiders go for $30.00 on ebay so I don't think that is the best way to make money.

Might be a better idea to buy the sets and sit on them for a year or even two, then ebay them !!!NIB!!!

By then, there will be folks who regret not having snatched them up during the splash-release frenzy, and gamers who started after the big Apoc fever was long over.

Hah. Miniatures as an investment strategy. Good luck with that.

One man's stock clearance is another man's investment opportunity  :S

Sorry to burst peoples bubbles,
just put your money in the bank and you get 6% interest,

that's even more than buying and re-selling these models (and you can still spend it)

:-)

Dunno if this was posted but here is a link to an interview with GW's independent retailer head honcho or whatever: http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/11214.html

That's the third page, where they were talking about the big launch of Apocalypse, the thing about it is that they said they want things released for the Holidays as XMas gifts.

The Apoc releases sure as hell fit that bill. Sure they release in October, the stock from that should last till about XMas if the manage it right. If it works, we can hope to see lots of good deals for XMas every year.

plus they have all these titans, flyer, gargantuan creatures from forgeworld that are rarely played in regular games. I have two tyranid bio titans and they sit on a shelf because we only have mega battles here once a year or so. With apocalypse that will change. I can play them more now

GW can save a ton of money on shipping and boxes.  If you put 5 land raiders in one larger box, then your cost only goes up by so much.  Finally, when shipping, you'll end up shipping out a lot more models in fewer boxes because there won't be as much wasted space.

Yes, logistics is a good money saving skill. There are lots of places to save money in packaging, volume shipping agreements, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if GW figures they can take a page from Wal-Mart's play book and get efficiency by way of scale.

Let's face it. If I had a box with 106 Marines, 6 Rhinos ETC, by the time I got them all table-top ready, there would be an Apocalypse Codex update.

And if you wonder why it takes me sooooo long, it is because i have a perfectionists attitude to my painting, and only an Idiot-goon Hand-eye-coordination....

Those two do not work well together.

I wish I could paint............................

HBMC-Thanks mate. My keyboard issues are almost as big as my mouth. lol

It just seemed to me that soooo many people were having a go at you personally for your review. I said it at the time, and mentioned it to my gaming group, that I thought your review was Cynical/funny/accurate(without being picky!!!)

I hope you post an Apocalypse review in the same style.

Have fun gaming Bud.

How cool would Epic Scale Apocalypse boxed armies be? Most of the models exist, all it would take is some good packaging....

For those of you whom think production of models is super expensive and whatnot. I can tell you with great clarity that GW is not losing money whatsoever on molds. People forget that GW's models are made and packaged in Mexico (cheap labour) and that while they cry about Mold costs the costs are vastly overinflated...

The materials are the cheap point with the initial mold costing them but still not as much as many think. Case in point GW can sell a model at 60% off and still turn a profit from that. Is that extreme? Not really almost all companies overprice their products in such a way... heck look at the clothing industry where 1 dollars worth of fabric is sold to you at anywhere from 10-100 dollars.

The biggest costs to GW is the machine itself.. but with any business model the sales from initial release should pay for it. Since GW doesn't have to buy any machines now its just the cost of making molds. And to the guy whom said it cost them basically 30 million to create the Baneblade mold.... You do realize that you just priced the cost to R&D a mold at a higher cost to R&D say an Electro pnuematic Paintabll gun which that industry already has high material costs (aircraft grade aluminum) and a higher price per unit...

Hell, if it took 30 million US to develope that then the model industry would beat out many CPU hardware manufactures just in R&D costs....

Posted By Heritor on 09/05/2007 11:47 AM
 People forget that GW's models are made and packaged in Mexico (cheap labour) and that while they cry about Mold costs the costs are vastly overinflated...

?????

I agree with Hellfury.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Si, fly.

They already tried it. Not enough people wanted to play Epic Armageddon. Which is a pity cause it's such a good game.

Also, I thought GW had it's own plastic plant in the UK?

I've never once heard a mention of a mexican plant. Far as I know it's all done in the UK. Some work was done to start setting up a second system in the US, but I don't think they produce any plastics in the US.

Some plastics are produced in the US... About half of the plastic sets I've bought here in Oz over the last 12 months have had 'Made in USA' batch stickers on them.

Posted By insaniak on 09/05/2007 5:30 PM
Some plastics are produced in the US... About half of the plastic sets I've bought here in Oz over the last 12 months have had 'Made in USA' batch stickers on them.

That probably just means the parts were made in the Uk and sent to the US, where the plastic was put in the box allowing them to say it was 'made' in the US.

GW does has a large and active plastic production facility in the US. Go back about two or three years on this News and Rumours forum and you should see some threads about it. They also make plastics in the UK. Quite a few models are exclusively made in the UK (e.g. older models, specialist games, etc.).