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JWBS wrote:
I've never had Hachette not fulfill any order I've made from them.

Yeah Hachette's customer service is poor and slow, but not actively hostile. They often need chasing, they get things wrong, their systems are all kind of broken (I've been chased for payment of an order that they didn't even send out yet due to delays).

But they're not doing it to con people, it's not a "oh no, you can't cancel now, so you have to give us another month's money" - you can always send stuff back to a freepost address for a full refund. Although you might be waiting months for it.

Their systems are bad, but not in than purposely-built-as-annoying-to-get-more-money way.

Aeneades wrote:

 lare2 wrote:
In the most recent reveal on Fauxhammer (#'s 19-22), there's a few hints that 23 and 24 have been leaked as well... can't find anything though. Anyone know?

The author of Fauxhammer appears to know but wont share yet.

Is that a bit like how he claimed to know the official name of the exclusive Primaris captain in issue 5, only for issue 5 to be released and it was a generic, un-named captain?

Quote: "As for his Name, well I’ve spoken with Hachette and I have the info on his name. But I want to know what you think? Put your guesses in the comments. Here’s a clue It’s something Ultramariney"

My next four issues arrived today so have experienced no delays despite being sent the email telling me I would.

I got an email from Hachette- Imperium subscriptions are available in the US.

Do you think the "premium" minis are worth an extra $240?

Blastaar wrote:
I got an email from Hachette- Imperium subscriptions are available in the US.

Do you think the "premium" minis are worth an extra $240?

They are worth it if you want them.
Which is really what a lot of this comes down too. Eg I didn't subscribe to Imperium because the Imperial stuff isn't what I want and the Sisters of Battle/Ad Mech which would interest me the most is only a token offering compared to the Marine Core. Meanwhile on the Necron front there's stuff I really want (eg flayed ones) and stuff I really don't need more of at this time (eg warriors). So it was better for me to snipe the issues I wanted from stores like Forbidden Planet and Dark Sphere.

However if you want it all or you can easily sell/trade off what you don't then by all means 100% go for it. Every issue and premium content is with a saving over retail. So if you want it all or envision wanting it all its great. If you don't want it and can't see yourself easily passing it on (trading/selling) then I'd not go for it

deano2099 wrote:


Yeah Hachette's customer service is poor and slow, but not actively hostile.

I very, very actively beg to differ. I spent three months chasing them for a hundred pound refund after buying items listed on their store that they never had in stock. They refused to give me my money back until I put them on 24 hours notice that I was finished playing around and heading to small claims court and was going to actively bill them for every hour wasted chasing them.

And even then, they dispatched a cheque, just to take the piss. Their customer service is a joke.

Well I'm going to give it a try. My son was bummed when I sold my indomitus necrons, and I've kind of regretted it since. (I hoped that the guy I sold to would want to play 40k, but didn't pan out). Probably practice painting all the new marines as black templars and work on my tabard sculpting.

 Ketara wrote:

deano2099 wrote:


Yeah Hachette's customer service is poor and slow, but not actively hostile.

I very, very actively beg to differ. I spent three months chasing them for a hundred pound refund after buying items listed on their store that they never had in stock. They refused to give me my money back until I put them on 24 hours notice that I was finished playing around and heading to small claims court and was going to actively bill them for every hour wasted chasing them.

And even then, they dispatched a cheque, just to take the piss. Their customer service is a joke.

I had a similar, but nowhere near as bad experience with them. Ordered stuff from their website, didn't arrive, when I got in touch with them I was told that it wasn't available and that they would be refunding me by cheque. Why can't they refund me back onto my card? Why did I have to get in touch with them in the first place?

I will never, ever deal with them directly again.

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

deano2099 wrote:


Yeah Hachette's customer service is poor and slow, but not actively hostile.

I very, very actively beg to differ. I spent three months chasing them for a hundred pound refund after buying items listed on their store that they never had in stock. They refused to give me my money back until I put them on 24 hours notice that I was finished playing around and heading to small claims court and was going to actively bill them for every hour wasted chasing them.

And even then, they dispatched a cheque, just to take the piss. Their customer service is a joke.

I had a similar, but nowhere near as bad experience with them. Ordered stuff from their website, didn't arrive, when I got in touch with them I was told that it wasn't available and that they would be refunding me by cheque. Why can't they refund me back onto my card? Why did I have to get in touch with them in the first place?

I will never, ever deal with them directly again.

You both got your money back though. That's my point, it's very poor customer service, it takes ages, you get stuff like refunds via cheque - but you will eventually either get your stuff or get your money back. They're not trying to scam you, they're just gak.

 argonak wrote:
Well I'm going to give it a try. My son was bummed when I sold my indomitus necrons, and I've kind of regretted it since. (I hoped that the guy I sold to would want to play 40k, but didn't pan out). Probably practice painting all the new marines as black templars and work on my tabard sculpting.

I had zero trouble buying double Indomitus necrons on ebay not long ago. Keep an eye out for them and eventually it will turn up at a fair price.

deano2099 wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

deano2099 wrote:


Yeah Hachette's customer service is poor and slow, but not actively hostile.

I very, very actively beg to differ. I spent three months chasing them for a hundred pound refund after buying items listed on their store that they never had in stock. They refused to give me my money back until I put them on 24 hours notice that I was finished playing around and heading to small claims court and was going to actively bill them for every hour wasted chasing them.

And even then, they dispatched a cheque, just to take the piss. Their customer service is a joke.

I had a similar, but nowhere near as bad experience with them. Ordered stuff from their website, didn't arrive, when I got in touch with them I was told that it wasn't available and that they would be refunding me by cheque. Why can't they refund me back onto my card? Why did I have to get in touch with them in the first place?

I will never, ever deal with them directly again.

You both got your money back though. That's my point, it's very poor customer service, it takes ages, you get stuff like refunds via cheque - but you will eventually either get your stuff or get your money back. They're not trying to scam you, they're just gak.

Would they have refunded me if I hadn't had contacted them after x weeks of no items? Would they have refunded Ketara if they hadn't threatened to escalate the issue? We have no way of knowing, but it's clear that it's not a good look.

Issueing refunds in the form of a cheque in 2021 is basically saying "here's an irritating hoop to jump through to get your refund, we hope you forget to do it or can't be bothered" IMHO.

Agreed they are not outright scammers, but really, that's a very, very low bar to judge them.

Their customer service is utterly slack and unhelpful. I've dealt with bad customer service from firms that are clearly just run by inept hippies, but this is different -- their protocols are clearly designed to make life difficult and expensive for their customers.

My point about Hachette giving me everything I paid them for was that there's no strong reason to suspect they'll renege on any orders they take for this product in the EU, in response to this comment

Don't know if they'll carry the entire range, or if this pre-order will even be fulfilled, but might be our only way, as far as I know, to get the mag and minis in Benelux.

Can't say I've had great experiences with the few occasions I've had to contact their customer service either. From slow and unhelpful, to my items not arriving and telling me they never existed in the first place despite placing the order. Not to mention the few times I've had packages turn up at old addresses only for them to tell me "that's your problem".

My delivery arrived today, reckon I'll be unsubbing soon based on the reveals of skitarii broken into multiple issues.

US Subscriptions are available now at this address: https://www.warhammer40000imperium.com/

I've seen the salt and vinegar above but still took the plunge... we'll see how the US distribution team does!

Dark sphere didn't receive the number they expected, so have cancelled some flayed one orders too.

Imperium Magazine Issue 15 : The UK distributor informed us this afternoon that they will not be receiving the number of copies they were expecting for this issue therefore (despite the fact that they had confirmed multiple times the volume we will be receiving) we will only in fact be receiving about a fifth of the expected number.


Unfortunately this means that we will not be able to fulfil your preorder and this item will have to be refunded.

Yeah just got the email :(

Very sad about this news

On the plus side that means I can get the Slaanesh Battleforce without worries (well aside from running out of stock this saturday)

Just had the same email from darksphere. I’ll have to hope one of the local news agents doesn’t get cleaned out by scalpers next week.

Every other time I order anything from darksphere there’s issues like this, it’s getting annoying but not sure it’s their fault.

Eh they get nothing out of taking orders they can't fullfill and then having to do refunds; that basically costs them money for no gain. It is more likely that distributors are messing with them though where the buck stops is hard to say - the distributor could equally be being messed with by the supplier. As a customer its really hard to know where the buck stops and hwo made the mistake(s)

Shouldn't lose them money as long as they held onto it for more than a month, they'd get a little bit of interest - but I can easily see that Hatchette has messed them around a bit. I don't think there has been a unit sprue as wildly good value before in Conquest.

Do these issues ever come back into stock, or is it just the unsold magazines that return to their online store?

 Overread wrote:
Yeah just got the email :(

Very sad about this news

Ditto. Was the first time I ever tried to get any of these Warhammer magazines that come with models as well.

Never used Dark Sphere before. Unlikely to ever bother trying again either.

 Tastyfish wrote:
Shouldn't lose them money as long as they held onto it for more than a month, they'd get a little bit of interest - but I can easily see that Hatchette has messed them around a bit. I don't think there has been a unit sprue as wildly good value before in Conquest.

Do these issues ever come back into stock, or is it just the unsold magazines that return to their online store?

Card transactions cost money, so taking your money the card processing company gets a cut, then refunding your money they get another cut. Refunding card purchases sucks for companies

Yep. It looks like I won't be getting any of the copies I ordered from darksphere either.

Any idea which newsagents/ supermarkets might be stocking it in the UK? I've tried a few searches online and I can't find any.

I’ve not had the email from darksphere, so fingers crossed that I’m okay?

I wouldn’t blame them if they were let down by Hatchette, I’ve only ever had good experiences with Darksphere and only ever had gakky experiences dealing with Hatchette.

WH Smiths (although some will have dropped it by now) my local carries it but usually only has 2 or 3 on the shelves

Forbidden planet (if you've got one nearby) will have it in too (they usually have more in than preorders but if hachette is cutting the number supplied that may not be the case for the flayed one issue)

We also don't know why the supplier cut Dark Sphere - it might be that somewhere along the line X amount was ordered and it was never produced or its been delayed and only a partial order has gone through. Or it sold out and the distributor/their supplier re-arranged order volumes for higher priority customers.

As for reprinting I've heard its happened before, however that was in part on issues with limited edition models. Flayed ones, whilst at an amazing discount, are a common sold model that you can buy right now. So there's every chance it might not get a reprint. Or it might get little reprints now and then not a bulk order.

I didn't have the email from Darksphere, but after checking my outstanding orders on the Darksphere site it shows the same message. I guess they just haven't got round to emailing me yet?

I wonder if GW realised that the second hand market would be flooded with low priced Flayed ones so decided to reduce the numbers of copies available to non-subscribers?

I bought a couple of copies from Forbidden Planet before I placed my Darksphere orders so fingers crossed that they arrive, I'll be pretty disappointed if I miss out completely.

GW will have decided how many were going to be made total months ago - along with Hatchetworks. That way they could produce, import and produce all ready for the release.

It's more likely that either importing delays have cut the total number in the short/long term or that stock is being moved around last moment. Heck it might be someone at the Distributor put the wrong number in a slot; let Dark Sphere over-order and now is getting raked over the coals for making a mistake that didn't get picked up on until they were putting boxes into the post (which considering the issue comes out on the 10th is likely just what's happening with stock for the magazine right now)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Some talk in the facebook groups suggest that Forbidden Planet and other stores are having issues too. So this looks like a supply issue directly from Hachettworks/GW is the root cause. So it sounds like they wanted to ship that many, then couldn't and then didn't tell stores until the last moment (which based on the customer feedback noted earlier seems on-par for Hachettworks )

The sliver lining might mean that those issues will come at a future date or it might be production couldn't get them done and they are dropped or they'll drip feed out into the market (ergo you might get a few here and there).

Hmmm, I had two orders (ordered 3 issues, then another 4 when they bumped their stock numbers).

Got the email cancelling the second order, but nothing for the first. Clicking on the first order on site shows the same generic "we dun goofed" message though, so not holding out hope.

It might be that right now they aren't even sure how they are getting orders out the door for what they do have. They might not even know the full number or they want to wait and count and see exactly what they do get rather than fully commit and then find out that the numbers were wrong a second time.