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Was talking to my friendly local purveyor today and he says that his sales rep (distributor) is having issues getting product to ship out to stores. Got an impression that molds aren't being filled, possibly work focus is elsewhere. How's everyone else doing getting ahold of stuff at this level?

As a friendly local purveyor, what I've been hearing is that PP simply hasn't been filling their orders to the distributors. I know some sources on the east coast got product recently, so it could be that PP is letting out product in 'turns'. Thankfully it's only been restock product that has been affected; all the new releases have come in to my shop no problem in the quantities I want.

I'll give PP the benefit of the doubt through until next year, though Minions being pushed back was disappointing. We shall see, though, as the blister racks thin out, how long the playerbase they've built will be willing to give them a pass.

-Dis.

One of my local stores is having similar issues. However they don't do much trade in WM/H. The big wargaming store in the same area has plenty of stock and seems to be getting the reups on time.

I think it may be an issue with certain distributors.

It may also have something to do with the holidays? Between boat loads of shipping going on between thanksgiving and christmas US mail and shippers slow down. Also when you look at the time of year, many business in the US have to deal with massive amounts of employee's wanting time off in November / December.

If the trend continues into January, i'd be concerned. But in the month of December, that sounds like normal business to me based on years of gaming experience. If you want something by christmas, in general with retail you probably should have ordered it the first week in december.

One thing to keep in mind is that distributors are misleading sometimes.

For example, Alliance, which does a lot of east coast orders, will order 500 of a new model. Three groups want these models: Big Account wants 400, Medium account wants 200, Small Account wants 50.

So Big Account gets 400, Medium Account gets 100, and Small Account gets Zero.

Then when Small Account complains, the distributor says "Well, they're not making enough to fill your order."


My basic rule of thumb is that if someone like Warstore doesn't have it in stock, then it's probably backed up in production, because they're a 'Big Account', so are more than likely to get the models they request.

Yeah, what I have been told is that it is the re-up stuff as well. New stuff not the issue.
No idea where they fit in the Big-Med-Little scheme.

I had a store in Maine that would try and order from Alliance all the time. Not huge orders, but the average stuff.

After about 6 mo of having his orders late/incomplete, he started ordering from Warstore, and never had that problem.

*shrug*

I'm sure there's a bit of fault at everyones level, but it's easy for folks to point at PP and say it was them because they're the company. I will admit that they have a relatively small production area, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were a bit behind in models.

Also to point out PP has a posting on they're site for production worker job. So perhaps its not to far of to think if they are short staffed on the production line they might be falling behind.

I was emailing with Neal from the War Store about their online listings of PP models in stock (or lack thereof) and this was part of his response:

Neal @ The War Store wrote:One of the problems with Privateer is demand has completely outstripped Privateers ability to restock their distributors. We are all waiting on Privateer to make more stuff :(

So it looks like it's simply that supply can't keep up with demand atm!

Also, Miniatures Market seems to keep quite a large amount of WM/H in stock, and list exactly what they have. They also have some (seemingly additional) stock listed on ebay.

I kind of suspected that was the case with PP.

The re-vamp of the games has caused an explosion of new players, and old players expanding their horizons.

They tried to farm out some work, ie plastics, and had it backfired a bit, see Destors.
So they are probably having a tough time keeping up product levels due to taking on more themselves than they planned, and scrambling to fit things into the production schedule.
I can imagine that making new releases is eating up a whole lot of time as well.
I know the Heavy Myrmidon boxes were out of stock for a good long while.

I remember hearing once that GW had to build up stock of Baneblades for over 6 months before they could put them out, for fear of not meeting demand.

Yep, very true.

It's a pain, but I'd rather there be lack of stock because demand is so high than there be lack of stock because PP doesn't care.

Still sucks though.

And the Heavy Myrmidons were out of PP's control, as those were made overseas.

RiTides wrote:I was emailing with Neal from the War Store about their online listings of PP models in stock (or lack thereof) and this was part of his response:

Neal @ The War Store wrote:One of the problems with Privateer is demand has completely outstripped Privateers ability to restock their distributors. We are all waiting on Privateer to make more stuff :(

So it looks like it's simply that supply can't keep up with demand atm!

Also, Miniatures Market seems to keep quite a large amount of WM/H in stock, and list exactly what they have. They also have some (seemingly additional) stock listed on ebay.

The EBay stock is also store stock. There's a blurb on their site about how if it's sold out there it's also sold out through EBay and that EBay is slower/harder to keep updated. Still, MM is top notch other than the Warstore. If I didn't live in MO and get charged sales tax (making the amount saved less than my FLGS offering 20% off, or TWS and their 25%) I would use them more.

According to my local supplier's distributor MKII Hordes is still having an effect with lots of players suddenly picking up newly popular lines caused by rules changes.

really, running out of stock to sell ( esp. with the christmas season, wow!!) is disappointing but hardly a worstcase scenario. I'll consider this a dodged bullet, lol. thanks for the news, folks. I appreciate it.

I just asked my FLGS to get me the legion warpack and for some reason none of his suppliers can get it and he has like no legion models it might also be because they are trying to come out with all these new releases or something but is very frustrating so i might have to purchase it from pp website

its down to who is the intermediary, in the uk iits cerabus who have earned my ire because they just go suck it up , its not us , even though ive been told they have things in stock they just cant be bothered to push them out

seriously pp need to choose a different company here

So essentially what you are saying is you are better off ordering from pp website or from minaturemarket places like that

Not necessarily... mikhaila (posts on this forum under that handle, runs Showcase Comics and Games near Philly) was able to find some models that I was looking for, but he did have to check several distributors.

My closest FLGS, however... I definitely wouldn't put in an order with them, people have had it take a really long time for PP stuff to come in.

But if you know the owner and they are trustworthy / willing to look around and make sure their distributor has it before taking your money, I think you can still do local.

It's frustrating, sure, but I'm also glad that PP is doing so well right now - and keep in mind, they just revamped two entire game systems in a year, with 12 full books published. That's one hell of an accomplishment, so I think I can cut them a little bit of slack when it comes to miniature production(and trust that they're working on a solution).

RiTides wrote:Not necessarily... mikhaila (posts on this forum under that handle, runs Showcase Comics and Games near Philly) was able to find some models that I was looking for, but he did have to check several distributors.

My closest FLGS, however... I definitely wouldn't put in an order with them, people have had it take a really long time for PP stuff to come in.

But if you know the owner and they are trustworthy / willing to look around and make sure their distributor has it before taking your money, I think you can still do local.

My FLGS owner is very trustworthy that is why i always see if he can get the models i want before i go somewhere else but it seems as if i will have to use dungeon trader and miniature market for hordes the one problem with dungeon trader i have is they do not have a big selection of legion unlike miniature market.

pp are consolidating there operations (minature production / distribution) i believe to fix this

ghost21 wrote:pp are consolidating there operations (minature production / distribution) i believe to fix this

What makes you know or think this?