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Quick question, is anyone else of the opinion that SW:A was a rush job just to justify to the shareholders that Necromunda would be a worthwhile investment or would miniture design and lead times mean the latter was well underway prior to SW:A hitting the shelves?

I'm not sure, but i imagine necromunda would have been underway in some form by the time sw:a was released. To me, sw:a (although i had it's issues with how they handled it) was born of something i've been saying for a long time - the rules are the cheapest part of the game to produce.

Making games with variant rules/scenarios/objectives to use existing product (rather than designing new minis for each new game) is a good way to keep players involved even if they aren't necessarily playing the primary game, and to shift existing kits.

I can't help but wonder if it was more along the lines of testing these waters (along with gangs of commorogh (sp)) and necromunda just happened to be in the pipeline concurrently.

I think it's actually the opposite, where SW:A and Necromunda were originally suppose to be one product, with Necromunda proper being the next expansion. Then the massive popularity of SW:A and the then-current popularity of Bloodbowl made GW reconsider their "one off" board games into potential tertiary franchises, which is why Necromunda got expanded into something more.

I think that it was a cash grab to boost revenue going into eighth and to bolster base support to increase positive reception of what has turned out to be a terrible rules system, a badly established numarine narrative, and insane pricing that has since simply alienated that same base. Without the retro second edition scenery gold box that was SWA then eighth would have come up against more critical review out of the gates. Basically this is market strategizing as a buffer to mold public opinion and pad the books... With rumors getting shut down and gw going full stazi these days I see the good will of the community diminishing and frankly a collective turn away from gw and increasingly to open source rules sets and third party minis. Gw has peaked. Chapter approved will be meh, and it will be downhill from there. My opinion.

Shadow War was to sell terrain bundles to ease the usual lull in sales in the run up to a new edition launch. We know that much.

Nothing to do with Necromunda, though it did in turn allow Specialist Games to work on Necromunda with that terrain in mind, as their budgets and production wouldn't have stretched to terrain. Hence the box set only having card sewer tiles but the game having rules for multi-level fights.

I think it was a nostalgic cash grab that wildly exceeded their expectations and made them seriously reconsider how to handle the Necromunda nurelease.

I think they were expecting a small splash that sold some new terrain and slow-moving model stock and got a pleasant surprise with it's initial reception.

I'm still flabergasted you can play Marine SCOUTS in SW:A, but not proper marines. Yet you can play full-fledged Chaos space marines....

Good points.

SW:A did give us some great scenery which seems purpose made for Necromunda.

I remember playing the original Necromunda and it was a great game, really looking forwards to this release - moreso than anything else this year.

SWA is a really fun game anywayz.

To me it felt that when Shadow War Armageddon was released it meant we wouldn't be getting Necromunda, I'm not sure GW meant for this to be the case. I would have bought SW.A but like many others, couldn't get hold of a copy.
Having seen the lack of scenery in Necromunda (I'm not a fan of the flat boards) I'll probably give it a miss.
I'd probably have bought both, but due to GW's marketing decisions I'll now get neither