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Dark Elves seem to be doing very well, heck they almost lured me in with those Cold One Riders, and I'm rather staunchly anti-elf. If GW gives them the love, just like they've been giving the latest codices, then they will sell, no question. DE don't get played because the models are terrible and the rules are ancient.

Frankly though, whether the company is healthy or not, if GW can't push Emo Space Fey Slavers with Dart Guns and Piercings IN SPAAAAAACE!, then they don't belong in this business.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Quite frankly, the only way to release DE "properly" is to tie it to the starter box of a new edition.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that inclusion in the 3rd Edition boxed set was the worst thing that could have possibly happened to Dark Eldar, given the Codex GW chose to write for them. They were a competitive army, but they most certainly were not for beginners, and I think they must have pissed off many new players

Plus, by the middle of the 3rd Ed. life cycle, you could pick up all the Dark Eldar Warrior models you could ever need for like $30. That probably made the army more attractive, but I don't think it helped GW feel they were getting a good return on their investment. The ridiculously cheap secondhand prices of Warriors also lead less experienced and/or cheaper players to try and work with lists that, frankly, were not even slightly competitive. Which in turn helped feed into the "Dark Eldar are terrible!" meme.

OK, guys, I think we simply disagree. I don't see GW simply throwing new DE models up "like any other army" and having them sell out. You seem to think that people will buy anything GW markets, even DE. As we won't find out for a while, I'm just going to let it be.

Some of these rumors are obviously cr@p, which makes the whole dang thing suspect.

Had anyone heard anything about new Space Hulk this year before this thread? I know I hadn't.

Eric

My impression of DE is that there is a small minority of senior players who like them because played well they are a strong, flexible army. However they are difficult to play, and not for newbies.

If GW want to make them more popular, the codex will need to be redone to appeal to a broader userbase, in other words, it needs to be made more powerful -- that is, easy to play and cheap units.

LoL, I am still getting a kick out of that translation. It is much better in spanish, as far as DE go it just said that they have discarded the release/launch. The "su" in that phrase applies to "lanzimento" not "DE". Being a new 40k guy, I don't really care either way, but we all know what assuming does, especially with rumors.
Chao Locos tengo que lanzar lodo al trono del emperador falso

I'm finding these 40k release rumors a little hard to believe. The reason for my disbelief is that this leaves an Imperium only year. With all of the gak that GW has been getting for favoritism towards the Imperium, I doubt that they really want to feed into a belief that kills sales.

The Empire getting a plastic steam tank, great swords and a redone War Altar does sound really tasty. Especially if the plastic Greatswords look great to boot, finally an excuse to field a large block of them.

MagickalMemories wrote:Some of these rumors are obviously cr@p, which makes the whole dang thing suspect.

Had anyone heard anything about new Space Hulk this year before this thread? I know I hadn't.

Eric

Yes I actually had.


Space Hulk is indeed being worked on, so if you believe me, that rumor is true and given that it is my favorite game of all time (at least the 1st version of it), I'll be very excited when they finally do release it.

Here's a better translation complements of http://translate.google.com/translate_t#

Thanks to a birdie, I give a lot of very reliable news about what Games Workshop launched during 2009. Obviously, insurance is insurance that is said there is nothing, but it is fairly safe

* March: War of the Ring. A supplement to SDA is a game of skirmishes, not battles. Some even sell plastic bases to "adapt" or "give up" the ministry of The Lord of the Rings.
* April: is the Imperial Guard. Few new models, but there will be little (and big).
* May: Fantasy, second wave of miniatures of the Empire. Andalusia familiar Steam Tank is joined (at last) the Great Espaderos plastic. We will see also the new Altar of War.
* July: Planet Strike Warhammer 40,000. A supplement for planetary assaults. Say that the scenery is the best that has ever seen.
* August: Elves for SDA.
* September: Do you remember that you said that 2009 was going to reissue a classic? So we can say that this is SPACE HULK. With new models (impressive), among others and exterminate Genestealers. Undoubtedly the hit of 2009 (and now also expect Heroquest reprinted). Ah, we were told that the price may be high, so buying in the UK is essential.
* October: It is possible (but unconfirmed) that the Warhammer Fantasy Skaven to see.
* In November it is highly likely to see a chapter of the Codex Marines, but is not yet confirmed.

And now some news:

* For 2010, it seems almost certain to be new Codex Tyranids and bloody Angeles (using the pull of Space Hulk), and is said to Necrons or (attention) Tau.
* In the first Fantasy army will be to Khemri. No news of the Beasts of Chaos.
* There is good news and bad news for fans of the Dark Eldar. The good news is that the project is finished, books and miniatures. The bad news is that for the low popularity of the Codex, has been ruled out launching.
* A rumor that had appeared on that Games Workshop was "set aside" the books and go to the PDF for free (as it did in Japan) is denied.

That's it. We thank who has blown the news (which will remain in anonymity).

Seems odd to produce a finished Codex and sculpt *all* the Dark Eldar stuff and then pull the plug. If it was an early draft of the codex and a few sculpts it probably wouldn't cost so much to cancel especially if the moulds have not been made. Once the moulds (especially moulds for plastic kits) are cast up the serious investment is made. Before that point it would still be reasonable cut their losses, plenty of other figures are sculpted and not used, some are even cast up.

It all depends on their projections for profit and the investment already made. If they've got a book and a fist full of greens people are kidding themselves if they think they couldn't afford to cancel it in place of something else. See, Dark Eldar may well be profitable, but are they profitable *enough*? I'm sure they will take money for them, they won't make a loss. But these army releases dominate a couple of months of WD space and investment across the company. If GW realise that replacing them with any one of a number of other things would bring significantly more profit for those month's time and effort, there's no sense in sticking with DE.

That said, beyond this rumour there's no reason to either take or lose hope of an eventual release.

I believe the proper term in regards to the Dark Eldar is "shelved and put in the fridge until the right time", not killed or abandoned.

Hellfury wrote:I used to have a de army and would start one again if I had a reason too. Without new models, or at the very least new rules, there is no reason to.

I'd be a multi-millionaire if I had a nickle for every time I saw this sentiment in a 40k forum.

I'm going to reiterate my point about Tyranids because it's an complete parallel to the DE situation.

In 2nd Edition Tyranid models were absolutely atrocious. They were a laughingstock. Their Codex had very little fluff, background or explanation. The army list offered very few options for anything. Biomorphs were available only to Warriors, Lictors, Carnifexes, and Hive Tyrants, and most of those upgrades were weak and useless. A bunch of the units in the army list were expensive and useless... GW rarely mentioned them except as a courtesy footnote here and there and they were, by an enormous margin, the single least played army... Is any of this sounding familiar?

Enter 3rd Edition.

The re-release of Tyranids featured an ENTIRELY redone model line. Models for all Tyranid units take on a common uniform, "related" appearance, and looked approximately 82,572 times cooler. Nearly every unit in the codex could be biomorphed. All biomorphs were viable, cool and worth considering. All units were viable, cool and worth considering. GW writes up very extensive fluff, background and explanations. GW starts talking about them all the time and giving them some prominence in the galaxy. What happened to their popularity then???

Did GW say "Meh, we did all this work to make Tyranids breathtakingly amazing, but since they're not popular now, they probably won't sell. Shelf the entire project until the crappy ones become popular"? Did people say "Ew, Tyranids. Weren't they that slowed looking army from 2nd Edition with the weak Codex? Forget it!"
... No. GW said; "They don't sell because we gave them crap. If we give them a fair shake, they'll be popular." And the customers said; "Wow! Not only are these new models a million times better looking, but their new codex makes them much more user-friendly and powerful with tons more options, all of which are useful! Suddenly, I want to play Tyranids!"

Why would GW shoot themselves in the foot by boxing a project, when their experience has shown that said project, with the work they put into making it attractive, will in all likelihood be a smashing success?

I call massive monkey bollocks on the shelving of Dark Eldar.

I'm talking King Kong sized Monkey Bollocks.

Why? If the book is done, the miniatures are done etc, then the investment has been made. Regardless of anything else, this is financial idiocy. IF it's ready, it releases.

Archonate wrote:
I like what Destrado said:

saying that DE are doomed on the sole reason of them being DE is something I don't quite get

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're trying to convey, but it seems to me that this is exactly what you're doing.

For clarification, I think that some people are trying to say that Dark Eldar are awful because they are Dark Eldar, thus unpopular and unwanted right from the start. If it were any other army, like the Fimir, the Fishmen, or the deadly and crazed mermaids of Zanzibar with their exploding wigs of death, they'd be hugely popular and awesome. But they aren't, they are Dark Eldar and thus even if they have all the boxes ready for shipping they still could be cancelled because... you get the point.

yakface wrote:

MagickalMemories wrote:Some of these rumors are obviously cr@p, which makes the whole dang thing suspect.

Had anyone heard anything about new Space Hulk this year before this thread? I know I hadn't.

Eric

Yes I actually had.


Space Hulk is indeed being worked on, so if you believe me, that rumor is true and given that it is my favorite game of all time (at least the 1st version of it), I'll be very excited when they finally do release it.

Thanks for that.
Between you confirming that it is in the pipeline now and Destris giving me hope early 2007, it may very well be plausible to those not in the know so to speak, that we may indeed see space hulk befoere the year is up.

a fall release would be great timing to boos christmas sales. I would covet two copies myself. Covet being an understatement.

If GW gives DE a better fluff treatment, cool new models, and support in WD (which basically consists of putting them in Bat Reps with cool 'eavy metal paint jobs) - they'll sell well. They won't be SM sales, probably not even Ork sales, but I think at least in the Necron/Tau range of sales. They don't need to be released in conjunction with anything else (new edition, new supplement, etc.) to do well. It would help sales if it's tied to another product, but not necessary. I'd like to see them come out around another APOC wave (which would be at least 4) with some sort of Dark Eldar APOC kit. They could also do splash releases to support both lines (just things like 3 ravagers, etc.). It'd be great if they did an APOC model that could be build for both Eldar and Dark Eldar (with Dark Eldar having a sprue with more spikes and skulls to adorn the kit).

NecronLord3 wrote:I think GW would be smart to release more boxed sets like the Assault on Black Reach box. That set contains an awesome set of starting miniatures for players to begin with or supplement an existing army. Releasing the DE Vs. another army would IMO, go along way toward making the DE more profitable for GW. If it were up to me, I would try to put at least one of these out each year.

It's a starter set, so what do you expect from AoRB? GW already did a release with DE vs Space Marines, and it was so awesome that people still have the DE warrior sprues kicking aroudn their houses.. I'm glad it's not up to you, but thanks anyways.

Can i ask a question? If IG releases in April/May, where are the pictures? Dammit, can't someone up at GW be a little corrupt and leak pictures like a nice person!??!

Archonate wrote:Did GW say "Meh, we did all this work to make Tyranids breathtakingly amazing, but since they're not popular now, they probably won't sell. Shelf the entire project until the crappy ones become popular"? Did people say "Ew, Tyranids. Weren't they that slowed looking army from 2nd Edition with the weak Codex? Forget it!"
... No. GW said; "They don't sell because we gave them crap. If we give them a fair shake, they'll be popular." And the customers said; "Wow! Not only are these new models a million times better looking, but their new codex makes them much more user-friendly and powerful with tons more options, all of which are useful! Suddenly, I want to play Tyranids!"

Why would GW shoot themselves in the foot by boxing a project, when their experience has shown that said project, with the work they put into making it attractive, will in all likelihood be a smashing success?

I don't disagree with your general point. But as a long time Tyranid player, I have to say that the number of Tyranid players at a GT didn't change much from 2nd edition to 3rd edition. After the 4th edition codex was released, things changed due to the popularity (due to army strength and ease of build) of Nidzilla armies.

GT participants don't reflect all hobbyists. However, I'm pretty confident in saying that from what I witnessed at GTs and at stores, Tyranids only stopped being a niche army in 4th edition. IMO, the best analogy for DE is still Wood Elves.

Dexy wrote:I want to play Gentleman of the Ring. Is this some kind of posh boxing minitures game?

Oh man... I was thinking the same thing. I was like Mike Tyson in a suit?

JohnHwangDD wrote:
If GW felt this way, they wouldn't have cancelled / delayed the DE release.

Pssst. John. It's a rumor. Doesn't mean it's true.

Howard A Treesong wrote:Seems odd to produce a finished Codex and sculpt *all* the Dark Eldar stuff and then pull the plug. If it was an early draft of the codex and a few sculpts it probably wouldn't cost so much to cancel especially if the moulds have not been made.

Which is correct. Why could any company, let alone the money grubbing GW, invest x amount of dollars and man-hours into sculpting, writing and revising rules only to be like... nah... We hate the idea of a potential return of investment.

I call BS on most of these rumors. Someone pass the salt please.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I call massive monkey bollocks on the shelving of Dark Eldar.

I'm talking King Kong sized Monkey Bollocks.

Why? If the book is done, the miniatures are done etc, then the investment has been made. Regardless of anything else, this is financial idiocy. IF it's ready, it releases.

To be fair, no, it's not idiocy. GW's only costs would be development costs, which couldn't be that high compared to other many other industries. Companies do shelve developed products if they feel the timing isn't right. Hell, feature films (albeit usually bad ones) that cost millions of dollars sometimes sit around for years on shelves before they're finished and released.

Printing all the books and casting all the miniatures, THEN dumping them into cold storage in a warehouse, that's idiocy. But that's not what we're talking about.

Mind you, I still think DE are on the way. GW will want to add a "new" army to 40K at some point, and totally revamped DE could essentially do that while having some existing collectors to dampen some of the risk.

Development Costs are extremely high for GW.

All the plastics would need to be sculpted and dies made, molds for the metal....lots of money sunk there to just not release them.

If they were that unpopular (which they aren't. I know a helluva lot of people holding off until the new Book comes out...) why bother developing them at all?

yakface wrote:

MagickalMemories wrote:Some of these rumors are obviously cr@p, which makes the whole dang thing suspect.

Had anyone heard anything about new Space Hulk this year before this thread? I know I hadn't.

Eric

Yes I actually had.


Space Hulk is indeed being worked on, so if you believe me, that rumor is true and given that it is my favorite game of all time (at least the 1st version of it), I'll be very excited when they finally do release it.

Thanks for coming in and saying it. I'd feel odd if I had said something and then had to explain "Yakface told me!" And I'm pretty prone to believe you based on all other evidence. Plus excited.

Classic GW.

"We release a new army (Dark Eldar) with a thin-ass codex and but-ugly miniatures....and then we'll leave it alone for several years".

*Sped a few years forward*

"Nah, looking at the sales-figures, it isn't viable to rerelease Dark Eldar".


Well, duh! A self-fullfilling profesi if I ever saw one.

Kinda like, "Space Marines sells well therefore we will support them more, so they'll sell more, so they be supported more, so they'll sell more".

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Development Costs are extremely high for GW.

All the plastics would need to be sculpted and dies made, molds for the metal....lots of money sunk there to just not release them.

If they were that unpopular (which they aren't. I know a helluva lot of people holding off until the new Book comes out...) why bother developing them at all?

MDG, it's because sometimes it's better to eat some costs than incur all the costs of releasing something you think will fall flat on its face. I don't know how I can be any clearer than that. Also remember that GW can design plastics with CAD now. They wouldn't necessarily have to create molds to develop the new miniatures.

AGAIN, not saying I think this is the case for DE and GW. I'm just educating you that this happens in a wide variety of industries, and that it's not *impossible* that GW would do it too.

I've already said what I think that rumor really means. And FWIW, I think DE would be a nearly guaranteed success with Jes and Phil Kelly at the helm.

I don't buy the DE cancellation, but more Space Hulk would be excellent.

I'm curious about the notion of movement bases for round slotabases being made for LOTR - if they had, say, space for five models spaced exactly two inches apart for coherancy they would be a revelation for horde army 40k players. They'd make playing with massed Termigants, Guard or Orks an order of magnitude easier. I hope that bit is true at least.

Phazer

I can buy that DE have been pushed back. Based on their appearance in fifth edition rulebook, they're a 'core' army and will get supported. Plus, they have APOC support, and I think more than Sisters or GKs. I'm sure they'll be back, but I think the question is when.

Also consider that it might be what they have ready is being held back until they complete more models. That entire line may be redone (at least any warrior models), so it could be that they have some HQs, the bikes, and maybe another unit ready (wyches), but are waiting for units like the warriors, mandrakes, the winged heavies, and the skyboarders to be ready to launch. Or, they have may developed new units that need worked up before the release.

Someone on B&C said that SWs were the September UK Gamesday release. It could be that, it could be that they'll be announced or previewed then and released towards the end of the year for the Christmas release.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Development Costs are extremely high for GW.

All the plastics would need to be sculpted and dies made, molds for the metal....lots of money sunk there to just not release them.

We don't know they've got that far, we know that Jes Goodwin is/was working on the plastics but with GW's current technology this could mean that they still only exist as computer models waiting to become moulds. In a similar fashion the 'finished' Codex may exist merely as a PDF on Jervis' Computer. As far as the Studio is concerned both the plastics and codex are finished.

Dark Eldar Players have been waiting a decade now, there's no rush.

Steelmage99 wrote:Classic GW.

"We release a new army (Dark Eldar) with a thin-ass codex and but-ugly miniatures....and then we'll leave it alone for several years".

*Sped a few years forward*

"Nah, looking at the sales-figures, it isn't viable to rerelease Dark Eldar".


Well, duh! A self-fullfilling profesi if I ever saw one.

Kinda like, "Space Marines sells well therefore we will support them more, so they'll sell more, so they be supported more, so they'll sell more".

Yeah, just like when someone said Necrons didn't sell well either! After 8 years without a codex update and only 1 new model after the initial release, of course sales are down. Duh!

GW's whole marketing outlook is skewed horribly. As they claim that Space Marines sell better than every other army, so they make more Space Marines which again sell well. Creating an endless cycle of Space Marine releases while non SM fans are left out, and abandon the game. Which again, creates further inflated SM sales, when non-SM players stop buying product.