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I think I picked the worst time. I can't find any models at all, like my LGS can barely order anything at all. I almost want to say his distributor is sold out of 70% of PP items, though I've only looked at three factions so I don't know if those three factions are just insanely popular or what. I've also tried going to gamestores that are out of town and I still had no luck. I even checked the warstore which granted had more stuff available than the others but was still out of stock with items that I wanted to get. Really bummed out cause I had pre ordered the starter set a couple of weeks ago and my LGS owner contacted me to tell me that all the pre orders were already taken.

Is this some kind of market stratagey their playing, or can they just not print enough models quick enough?

It's no marketing tactic, they simply can't keep up with demand right now. The problem is pretty well known. They have taken measures recently to ensure a core list of models are more readily available by increasing production but it's probably taking time to trickle down through distributors and stores to us customers.

Miniature Market probably has the best supply of WM/Hordes right now (I actually was able to get a Reinholdt!);

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/

Terrific customer service too.


One thing I've noticed is--every time I've ordered, I've had parts missing in at least one blister. PP has been absolutely terrific in replacing the missing parts (and quickly)--but just something to prepare yourself for.

That's weird, I've never had an issue of missing parts from new blisters/boxes. But yeah, various pieces are tough to get from local stores. As much as I like supporting locals, if they can't get a product within the foreseeable future and ebay can get it to me in three days, it's no real surprise where my money goes.

Our LGSs can't get any product in store. It's a terrible time for that, too, as Privateer is in the midst of their Journeyman League, a league designed to get new people into the game.

Not gonna happen if they can't buy the models they need...

They already took an entire month off from releases, and still can't keep up with demand? This is a problem they REALLY need to fix...

Tooling and expansion need to be planned right or you're in more trouble at the end of the day than you were at the beginning.

The only thing I have had come in wrong was an eSeverius that had an amom ad-raza card in it, but PP shipped me out a new blister. Anyways, as to the shortage I honestly think it is because many are swapping from other wargames to come to warmahordes or other PP games, give it a few monhs and it should fix itself, or I hope i does because I have quie a few pieces pre-ordered for my legion stuff.

Yea I was trying to get enough models for this steamroller event but it doesn't look like I'll be able to make it this time guess I'll just wait for the next one until PP can make some more models.

They're kinda being hit with a double whammy right now. They, like "some other company", are trying to move away from metal to resins and plastics, and as such don't want to spend a crap ton of money on new metal production capability if they can avoid it.

This change is compounded by certain announcements by "some other company" that caused quite a few of their players/customers to at least look at other places to spend their money, many landing on PP as the alternative.

To be clear I don't think there was a giant exodus from "some other company", the vast majority of thier players are going to continue playing their games and spending their money on said games. I do think there was statistically significant number of players that made the switch, and as "the other company" has a much much bigger customer base than PP at this point that switch might have been way more noticeable to PP than "some other company". Additionally, people new to the game tend spend a bit more than an existing player,and tend to buy certain must have models more often, exagerating the statistical annomalies in the supply chain.

I cheated and got all the new releases I wanted at Pax Prime.

Even got my two player box.

cincydooley wrote:Our LGSs can't get any product in store. It's a terrible time for that, too, as Privateer is in the midst of their Journeyman League, a league designed to get new people into the game.

Not gonna happen if they can't buy the models they need...

They already took an entire month off from releases, and still can't keep up with demand? This is a problem they REALLY need to fix...

I wouldn't say popularity is something they need to fix. But rapid changes in demand are very difficult for a company the size of privateer press. Especially after years of a standard steady flow of new gamers, to have huge influx of new people like they have...they can't just hit a button and ramp up production.

People keep stating this "huge influx of new players.". Do we have anything to support this? They haven't been able to get a consistent amount of product into the stores for nearly a year. Again, they didn't even have any august releases and they still can't get production up. I like privateers products, but this is a huge problem.

IMO They're trying to do too much at once. Metals, plastics, and now resins. Thats a lot of different product to have to diversify yourself in when, as you said, they're a small company. I think it is incredibly admirable that they don't want to have to hire someone only to lay them off later, but their inability to get their product to market is hurting them.

I think privateer may be sooner to becoming a public company than we think. Doing so would allow them a nice influx of capital that would help their production issues. However it would also mean that they'd be subject to a lot of the things that everyone likes to complain about GW for.

Going public when you're reliant on specialty independent stores
and a volunteer crew to promote your product? That sounds like
a bad idea, but I guess if I had business sense I wouldn't be
posting on a forum.

malfred wrote:Going public when you're reliant on specialty independent stores
and a volunteer crew to promote your product? That sounds like
a bad idea, but I guess if I had business sense I wouldn't be
posting on a forum.

I see what you did there. Very clever. I mentioned it because the influx in capital that would be had by going public would, as I said, allow them to fix pretty much all of their production issues.

Spouting off sarcastic barbs about "business sense" when you know nothing about whom you speak is pretty ignorant.

What are you talking about? I don't have any business sense. It
wasn't intended as a barb.

PP has stated that they don't want to just throw money at the problem - especially if it means that they have to lay off people once their production ramp ups are done. I can certainly respect that - it means that they've been unfortunately slow in catching up with their production fall off, but you can't just hire people and say 'cast these models' and expect to have the same quality production as you do people who have been trained and practiced at spinning molds for quite a while already. And I'd much rather have a consistent quality of product.

cincydooley wrote:People keep stating this "huge influx of new players.". Do we have anything to support this? They haven't been able to get a consistent amount of product into the stores for nearly a year. Again, they didn't even have any august releases and they still can't get production up. I like privateers products, but this is a huge problem.

IMO They're trying to do too much at once. Metals, plastics, and now resins. Thats a lot of different product to have to diversify yourself in when, as you said, they're a small company. I think it is incredibly admirable that they don't want to have to hire someone only to lay them off later, but their inability to get their product to market is hurting them.

I think privateer may be sooner to becoming a public company than we think. Doing so would allow them a nice influx of capital that would help their production issues. However it would also mean that they'd be subject to a lot of the things that everyone likes to complain about GW for.

Empirical Evidence? No, I don't have that but I'm sure I could get some if I searched around for it but I'm just a tad lazy to do that. What I do know, however, is that every gaming store I've gone to since I started playing WM (which hasn't been that long at all, mind you) the employees have all stated that they've noticed a big movement towards privateer press products over the last however many months. And pretty much anytime I go into a store and I'm holding WM products, someone shopping there talks about having just recently switched and getting their friends to move to it as well. Heck, my friend and I started WM at the same time, I've recruited 2 other people from flames of war and my friend and I collectively recruited 2 other warhammer players as well.

Evidence for an influx of players? nah, but I do know that the numbers at the UK masters last year was half that of this year. Tickets for the major events over here are selling out within a week. I think there is an upsurge in player numbers at least.

As for GW, it's not going to disapear, especially in the UK. With its large base of stores and most wargamers coming into the hobby via GW I'm sure that they will survive in some fashion. As for the rest of the world, I can't comment.

See. Everyone has their own stories, but GWs profits don't reflect this major exodus that everyone is touting

@Malfred-my bad. Seemed snarky upon reading it :-)

cincydooley wrote:See. Everyone has their own stories, but GWs profits don't reflect this major exodus that everyone is touting

@Malfred-my bad. Seemed snarky upon reading it :-)

Of course they don't, they just switched to cheaper material and raised the prices...

cincydooley wrote:See. Everyone has their own stories, but GWs profits don't reflect this major exodus that everyone is touting

@Malfred-my bad. Seemed snarky upon reading it :-)

They show a continual decline in GW's player base in the form of decreased sales volume. Though such information is irrelevant, not every new PP customer is an ex-GW one.

Apart from the difficulty in getting hold of No Quarter over the last few months I've not really encountered the shortages of stock. It is a while, perhaps a year or so) since I bought something that wasn't a new release though.

cincydooley wrote:

malfred wrote:Going public when you're reliant on specialty independent stores
and a volunteer crew to promote your product? That sounds like
a bad idea, but I guess if I had business sense I wouldn't be
posting on a forum.

I see what you did there. Very clever. I mentioned it because the influx in capital that would be had by going public would, as I said, allow them to fix pretty much all of their production issues.

Spouting off sarcastic barbs about "business sense" when you know nothing about whom you speak is pretty ignorant.

Ok, so I will speak on this. IPO's are not magical money making ventures. It costs alot of money to set the company up correctly to go public. First off, you have ensure you are in a position to survive the costs involved. You have to have people who you either hire or retain who understand all the legal matters that need to be addressed. You have to change the makeup of your board of directors. You have to have processes in place to ensure you are SOX compliant. You have to ensure that your financial reporting processes and financial accounting processes are in order. You have to have someone willing to underwrite the issuance. Then you have to deal with the SEC, IRS, and all the other governmental alphabet soup agencies who want to get involved. After all that you have to find people who are willing to buy your securities, which given the type of business PP is, is a distinct possibility that it will not happen. IPO's are risky and can be a bet the ranch type deal when it's not necessary.

So throwing out statements where you are recommend business actions when you know nothing about what you speak is pretty ignorant.

AgeOfEgos wrote:Terrific customer service too.


One thing I've noticed is--every time I've ordered, I've had parts missing in at least one blister. PP has been absolutely terrific in replacing the missing parts (and quickly)--but just something to prepare yourself for.

I have to agree.... missing a furnace for one of my Jacks.... filled out the form and within a couple of days it was in my mail box.....

I was not implying that people were leaving GW by any means in my earlier post, part of what encouraged me to look into the game was due to he fact that mos of my RPG group would be leaving the general area of which the military has me stationed at. I honestly cannot say that there is a "mass exodus", only the ones and twos that decide to try the system out.

As bummed out that I am, that some items from PP are very hard to come by or take a long time to get to me, I really think this is a good thing in the end.

PP wants to grow and expand controlled - they don't want to choke after they bit of more than they could chew. So for us, this might be a good thing, because that way they ensure, that they'll be around for a long time to design quality products for their consumers.

I also appreciate that they're talking about the shortage and/or production problems instead of telling us it doesn't exist. I try to support my local store that I play in for Warmachine purchases most often, but when I'm wanting something quicker than a general 2-3 week turnaround, discountgamesinc.com (ebay store) seems to always have a good selection of stock. They also get things shipped out quick (generally if I order on Monday morning I'll have it by Wednesday or Thursday).