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I asked this a week or so ago but it got locked because some were arguing over something unrelated

Anyone any word or opinion regards Xmas boxes this year? Last year they leaked on Oct 30th on Spikey Bits.

England going into a lockdown Thursday 5th Dec for a Month(possibly more they dont know yet)

They are such good value I was really looking forward to the leak of what was coming....but now I am not so sure they are going to happen.

I doubt they'll happen this year, considering the production issues they had, have and probably will have over the next month.
I think that if they will do them, we will know about it in two weeks at most. If we know nothing then, it'd be safe to say they won't be coming.

 Aenar wrote:
I doubt they'll happen this year, considering the production issues they had, have and probably will have over the next month.
I think that if they will do them, we will know about it in two weeks at most. If we know nothing then, it'd be safe to say they won't be coming.

My thought was that they are usually older stock(I think?) maybe hat might mean theres a chance.

Older stock would be in boxes. They don't go around ripping. Especially as gw has never had huge warehouses(big stock sitting costs money).

Some of the production shortfall we are seeing now might be because staff are also producing and stocking up on the Christmas bundle boxes as well as the added pressure of Indomitus wave 2.


That said we've not heard anything and we've really no idea what is going on. We don't even know if there will be any regional limits - eg uk gets it but overseas doesn't etc...

They'll probably be a lot more expensive this year, so I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

Hoping for a decent Titanicus set, though.

 Aenar wrote:
I doubt they'll happen this year, considering the production issues they had, have and probably will have over the next month.
I think that if they will do them, we will know about it in two weeks at most. If we know nothing then, it'd be safe to say they won't be coming.

While it's not out of the question that they simply don't have the capacity to do christmas boxes this year, it would have to be a fairly dire situation for OTHER production to not be what takes a backseat.

The christmas boxes essentially print money considering they act as both excellent value adds for current collectors and a great draw for people looking for a relatively affordable way into the hobby.

Well they still managed to spare the resources for a useless xmas promo model.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Well they still managed to spare the resources for a useless xmas promo model.

Yes, one that they'd probably done all of the work for already like all of the other promo models done for this year.

given that the UK is looking at a 4 week shut down by thursday I've a nasty feeling that could interfere

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Well they still managed to spare the resources for a useless xmas promo model.

Which model is that?

The traditional "Bugman" dwarf.

New Bugman. Airship Overlords style.

A single character model isn't hard though.
Xmas boxes, on the other hand, are usually multiple kits in normal production. Both SW and BA last year had intercessors for example, and those have been out of stock multiple times this year. Packing up a bunch for a Xmas bundle means taking more away from normal stock. And yes, they could overproduce something, but they're in the hole with so many products at this point...

For example, a Death Guard Xmas bundle would be nice with the new codex (which means it probably won't happen, because the codex should cause a sales spike anyway), but both Blightlord Terminators and normal DG marines are out of stock. Its hard to justify not selling the normal kits for even longer to sell them in a discount box.

If we are talking about production delays, there is also the issue of boxes. If those are printed in china, how long ago did they need to order and pay for them? I suspect that call was probably made sometime over the summer. If they don’t fill and sell them this year, that’s a sunk cost.

I'm sure they'll whip up some kind of shovelware - maybe 'Ulthwe militia' with a bunch of 20+ year old guardians?

 ScarletRose wrote:
I'm sure they'll whip up some kind of shovelware - maybe 'Ulthwe militia' with a bunch of 20+ year old guardians?

Half the new Broken Realm boxes feel that way. Dark elf infantry and dragon? 3x chaos chariots?
Not quite two decades, but... Woof.

Voss wrote:

 ScarletRose wrote:
I'm sure they'll whip up some kind of shovelware - maybe 'Ulthwe militia' with a bunch of 20+ year old guardians?

Half the new Broken Realm boxes feel that way. Dark elf infantry and dragon? 3x chaos chariots?
Not quite two decades, but... Woof.

Y'know... I wouldn't be surprised if that's the reason for the somewhat lackluster Combat Patrol boxes too. "Special" Space Wolf Reivers that look almost exactly the same? A Blood Angels box with Incursors but no Assault Intercessors? Deathwatch having two HQ choices and only 13 other infantry models total...?

I think a UK lockdown probably kills any chance of holiday battleforces - assuming the not-lockdown lockdown is enough to force GW ops to shut down the factory again.

Even still, the holiday boxes are usually announced a few weeks ahead of time to give people some notice on them, if they arent in next sundays preview, and/or they don't show up in nov 2020 white dwarf (i.e WD 458) its safe to say they probably aren't happening.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I think a UK lockdown probably kills any chance of holiday battleforces - assuming the not-lockdown lockdown is enough to force GW ops to shut down the factory again.

Even still, the holiday boxes are usually announced a few weeks ahead of time to give people some notice on them, if they arent in next sundays preview, and/or they don't show up in nov 2020 white dwarf (i.e WD 458) its safe to say they probably aren't happening.

I think if the GW factory were expected to shut down they'd not have done a preview today. Since if the factory went down the warehouse would also go down and that would mean even if they had everything made it wouldn't be able to leave the site. Instead we've had a normal hobby info drop which suggests GW expects to remain operational. Right now they might be doing a run-around at their local stores for people who had items set to ship to their local and seeing if they can contact them and have those orders changed to direct to home.

I believe the same thing occured with the previous lockdown, the lockdown was announced but GW continued to operate as normal up until the day the lockdown went into effect and then they issued a statement.

I'm sure they'll continue to do what they've been doing lately with how they're keeping retailers in the loop and well informed.




And I hope they do terrain bundles this year.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm sure they'll continue to do what they've been doing lately with how they're keeping retailers in the loop and well informed.




And I hope they do terrain bundles this year.

This! I enjoy making terrain, but I'd love a bundle with all three plastic Titanicus sets, as they are quite nice.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm sure they'll continue to do what they've been doing lately with how they're keeping retailers in the loop and well informed.

Thats sarcasm, right?

And I hope they do terrain bundles this year.

I love the terrain bundles, if they do holiday bundles again this year I hope terrain bundles are included.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Thats sarcasm, right?

Look who you're talking to.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I love the terrain bundles, if they do holiday bundles again this year I hope terrain bundles are included.

SamusDrake wrote:
This! I enjoy making terrain, but I'd love a bundle with all three plastic Titanicus sets, as they are quite nice.

Terrain bundles are always lots of fun. I just managed to pick one of these old kits. I hope they do more stuff like this.

Still waiting for my indomitus box

They might not do the traditional boxes, but I could see them doing something like bundles. So it would be everything that was originally supposed to be IN the xmas box, but just as separate boxes.

I sure would love a Sisters of Battle Xmas box to get me started on the army....

Yeah, I was really hoping for a Sisters box this year to bulk out my army. I've honestly moved away from buying individual kits and mostly just buy the two faction sets, start collectings, and battleforces to quickly build up my armies. I have very large collections that I purchased for very cheap (as I get to buy this stuff at 25% off retail since I do some part time work for my FLGS, so its even bigger savings than they already are) as a result.

Also really hoping that the other parts of the "Wall of Martyrs" terrain series comes back into stock (Aquila Strongpoint, Firestorm Redoubt, etc.), figured holiday splash releases were my best hope for that.