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 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:
If this wasn't GW's doing and Tau really are just that popular, then I think GW picked the wrong army to be its poster boys, because I don't ever recall a Space Marine release being this successful in the time that I've been in the hobby. Never saw guys lining up outside the local store just to ensure they get the new SM codex/models before everyone else on release day, or seen people go nuts and buy up an $85 kit like they have with the riptide, which most people are saying was the most popular item this weekend, selling out in stores everywhere despite the ludicrous price point which most people seem to agree is insane even for GW's standards.

Tau are harder to play than SMs and have less appeal to newcomers but more appeal to veterans.

I remember reading somewhere that Tau used to account for 10% of 40K sales. I have no proof of that, though.

Vet Tau players have been waiting an awful long time for this update.

Not to mention that it's much easier to make sure you have enough Space Marines for a release. They have a much better idea of how they sell. The "people lining up so Tau must be better selling than Space Marines" argument really doesn't make sense though; if there was a shortage of Space Marines at launch and you weren't sure you'd get the stuff you wanted, why would you not max out your chances to get it? It's not about "getting it before everyone else", it's about getting it at all.

 Sidstyler wrote:
If this wasn't GW's doing and Tau really are just that popular, then I think GW picked the wrong army to be its poster boys, because I don't ever recall a Space Marine release being this successful in the time that I've been in the hobby. Never saw guys lining up outside the local store just to ensure they get the new SM codex/models before everyone else on release day, or seen people go nuts and buy up an $85 kit like they have with the riptide, which most people are saying was the most popular item this weekend, selling out in stores everywhere despite the ludicrous price point which most people seem to agree is insane even for GW's standards.

Heh, I went to buy the Codex to my FLGS on Saturday, usually when there has been launch day, it has been *crickets*, with large piles of new boxes laying around. Now I went there, "sorry, all the Codex have been sold out! Better luck next week." All the Riptides were gone too. Now, I believe GW simply has not produced new stuff that much, after all they have been releasing lots of new things of late, that has to create production bottlenecks. But it's true that Tau at their 4th edition heyday were popular army (to the point of people complaining about it), and lots of players have always been interested about them, but turned off by other people telling them that the army's terrible.

I know lots of players have 5-6 Devilfish hulls stored away, from the 4th edition days, waiting for the day they become good again. Many of them probably bought the book last Saturday, hoping it would be the day. Alas, it wasn't...

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Tau are harder to play than SMs and have less appeal to newcomers but more appeal to veterans.

Appeal is not the same as "easy to play". Some people hate to play evil, some people hate skullz. There are many reasons to start an army, including "Tyranids are so cuuuute"

My 14 year old son and his friend both have Tau forces and both are willing to keep plugging away and learning how to use them as they both like the "high tech" and "good guy' nature of the Tau. Good guy as defined for Warhammer 40K not in real life of course.

 Kroothawk wrote:
There are many reasons to start an army, including "Tyranids are so cuuuute"

Hive Fleet Voro approves of this message.

*Hive Fleet Voro is my off shoot segment of Hive Fleet Behemoth roaming the Galaxy.

I wasn't there for the unboxing, so I can't say for certain what was originally in the box, but it seemed like my FLGS got most of what they normally would including all the special characters. The Broadsides were the only thing MIA (ordered but not shipped) and while I believe he said he received 4 Riptides Friday, there was only 1 left Saturday morning and it was in the "spoken for" area behind the register so those sold out relatively quickly. I don't know about the number of codexes ordered, but they typically get about a dozen and I only recall seeing 4 more out (though sometimes they stash them in weird places down the aisles). All in all I'd say the release sold fairly well for them.

The only other army I recall being released that had such a shortage of models available on release weekend was the Grey Knights, though I may have had a personal hand in why only one or two other people could have gotten models after both their initial release and their 5th ed codex...

My local was able to get a few things but no ruptures or broadsides or any of the HQ models.

Maybe GW decided not the release the Broadsides because they look ridiculous. I seriously thought that the missile broadside pic was a photoshop, like the Dreadknight ones.

 spaceelf wrote:
Maybe GW decided not the release the Broadsides because they look ridiculous. I seriously thought that the missile broadside pic was a photoshop, like the Dreadknight ones.

Funny you say that as I mentioned to a friend of mine that Tau were coming out (he's a lapsed Tau player) and his quote was "Wow, I'm glad I didn't buy any FW suits, because the new ones look pretty cool!" While I think the new Broadsides are a vast improvement, I wouldn't go so far as to put them above FW's.

Different folks and all that...

My FLGS had a stack of Broadsides for sale. Same with Bombers. They didn't get enough Riptides though. Not by a long shot.

A lot of players must think the Broadside is too pricey at £30.

GW stores were understocked just like everyone else on release day this past Saturday. My local GW store had a fraction of the usual stock for a new release. Instead of getting a case of Codex books to sell they had only about a dozen. The store lost thousands of dollars in sales this weekend from being understocked. All the new models were gone shortly after opening on Saturday and even some of the older existing models sold out too. Advance Orders were so big they ate up a huge chunk of what would have been shelf stock for stores on release day and with only a week between advance orders and release day GW had little time to make up the difference. The guy in Nottingham HQ who did the sales projections for this release may find himself sacked, he or she messed up in a big way.

I haven't seen such large piles of Advance Order stock at my local GW Bowie Battle Bunker in a long time. Many people advance ordered huge expensive piles of Tau models and I even saw multiple copies of the $100 limited version of the Tau Codex being cracked open on Saturday.

This demonstrates really clearly why a one week period between advance orders and release day can be a terribly bad thing for GW, their stores and their independent sellers.

 BrassScorpion wrote:
GW stores were understocked just like everyone else on release day this past Saturday. My local GW store had a fraction of the usual stock for a new release. Instead of getting a case of Codex books to sell they had only about a dozen. The store lost thousands of dollars in sales this weekend from being understocked. All the new models were gone shortly after opening on Saturday and even some of the older existing models sold out too. Advance Orders were so big they ate up a huge chunk of what would have been shelf stock for stores on release day and with only a week between advance orders and release day GW had little time to make up the difference. The guy in Nottingham HQ who did the sales projections for this release may find himself sacked, he or she messed up in a big way.

I haven't seen such large piles of Advance Order stock at my local GW Bowie Battle Bunker in a long time. Many people advance ordered huge expensive piles of Tau models and I even saw multiple copies of the $100 limited version of the Tau Codex being cracked open on Saturday.

This demonstrates really clearly why a one week period between advance orders and release day can be a terribly bad thing for GW, their stores and their independent sellers.

I agree, the week is just too short. I generally understand the logic behind their secrecy strategy, but still just a week of preview period is IMO too short. It doesn't give playerbase enough time to get properly excited and if the launch is more popular than expected, leads to situations like this. But this gives me hope that GW might note that fish guys can sell, and maybe now I don't have to wait until 2024 for a new Codex....

Tau have gotten 3 codexes since 3rd Edition (and late third at that). Tau have gotten more full codexes than any xenos outside of Tyranids from 3rd edition onward and none of them were the small thin books. That's the same support as DA (if you count their thin book) and BA (if you include the thin book and a WD codex), and more than Spacewolves. The only codexes to get updated more (assuming a 6th edition release) are Codex Space Marines and Codex Tyrannids (oddly the tied with SM's for the most updated codex). Sorry for the rant but the we don't get updated thing gets old.

Out here everything seems to be pre-order only that came in and on the shelf I can only find Hammerheads, Pathfinders, and repackaged Crisis.

Tau were immensely popular in 3rd and 4th so I'm a little shocked they undervalued them so highly.

The 3rd and 4th edition codexes were 64pp.

Tau were immensely popular in 3rd and 4th so I'm a little shocked they undervalued them so highly.

It would of course be cynical and DakkaDakka-meme-ish to say that this is evidence of GW's amateurish approach to business.

64pp?

Pages

Was in a gw store today only had the flyer and broadside from the new releases didnt even have the tau codex

I wonder if because of this f'up will they revists there supposed schedule for new releases

My flgs was told by his GW sales rep that they would only get finecast and the codex. They ended up getting everything the ordered.

If your store didn't have the codex, it's because they either didn't order any, or sold out. The codex was the 1 thing that sales reps said would NOT be in short supply.

My FLGS got everything they ordered (mainly because the person doing the ordering has no knowledge of the system, or the local customers, so orders a minimum of everything, ongoing issue at the store, as said person is the owner's mother, and it's hard to broach subjects like this with him), and sold out of everything but pathfinders.

In fact, the codexes were all gone at 12:45AM on Saturday (Open till 2amish on friday night), as were the riptides. Interestingly, they got three riptides, but one of them had no base, and had two of the weapon sprues, and no body sprue.

I know the owner's been increasingly incensed by GW's screw ups (not enough of the Xmas megaforces, often not getting what they order, or the incorrect items, poor communication), but this one pissed him off mightily. It's a big ticket item, guaranteed to sell, with limited available stock, and 33% of what they sell him is unsellable.

One of the online retailers has posted on Facebook that the Tau Firewarrior team are direct only now, anyone heard anything about this?

They don't do direct order plastics troop sets. I find that highly unlikely.

The codex was the 1 thing that sales reps said would NOT be in short supply.

Well, the reps were incorrect because the Codex was in short supply even at GW's own stores.

My opinion is this affects only the "gotta have it now" gamers, so I can field my grey Tau army before the next shiny codex comes out. I myself am not concerned as I have things to paint and this supply issue will be sorted once I get finished with the small amount of minis I have at the moment on my painting desk.

 Mick A wrote:
One of the online retailers has posted on Facebook that the Tau Firewarrior team are direct only now, anyone heard anything about this?

That's nonsense. All "GW stockists" are even required to have two boxes.

Alastair78 wrote:
My opinion is this affects only the "gotta have it now" gamers, so I can field my grey Tau army before the next shiny codex comes out. I myself am not concerned as I have things to paint and this supply issue will be sorted once I get finished with the small amount of minis I have at the moment on my painting desk.

No, the biggest losers are stores. There has been so much talk about brick & mortar stores (both GW and indy) being in trouble these days, but for once there was a suitably popular launch item that people were lining up to the stores just that they'd get the stuff right away...and there was not enough to sell. What if the people start to think this will be the trend? Maybe next Eldar release will be hugely popular but people remember the Tau release "nah, they don't have enough them to sell anyway, might just as well preorder from GW". I can see why the stores might be slightly miffed because of this.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

I remember when I worked at Selfridge's I was taught that the first principle of retailing is to put the money in the till.

You can't do that if you don't have stock to sell.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Tau have gotten 3 codexes since 3rd Edition (and late third at that). Tau have gotten more full codexes than any xenos outside of Tyranids from 3rd edition onward and none of them were the small thin books. That's the same support as DA (if you count their thin book) and BA (if you include the thin book and a WD codex), and more than Spacewolves. The only codexes to get updated more (assuming a 6th edition release) are Codex Space Marines and Codex Tyrannids (oddly the tied with SM's for the most updated codex). Sorry for the rant but the we don't get updated thing gets old.

Well, the update from the first Tau codex to the Tau Empire codex (the second one) was lackluster. The Tau Empire codex lost some special characters and gained Vespid. The old metal stealth suits were replaced with plastic ones which did not look nearly as stealthy.

The new update is also lackluster in comparison to recent xenos releases. With the new codex we got two new units; the riptide and the flyer; and plastic versions of pathfinders and broadsides. There was also finecast Shadowsun and Darkstrider. That is five new types of units total. The nids got Mawloc/Trygon, Tervigon/Tyranofex, Harpy, Pyrovore, Venomethrope, Hive Guard, Parasite of Mortrex, and Doom. That is ten new units. The Necrons got a flyer, Ghost ark/ doomsday ark, Command barge/annihilation barge, Triarch Stalker, Lychguard/Praetorians, Immortals/Deathmarks, Tomb blades, finecast flayed ones, plastic wraiths, plastic spyder, and 8 new special characters. That is twenty new units. I will not even mention the Dark Eldar. GW is upping its release schedule by not releasing as much stuff. The Tau release is like a half release. It sucks, as now Tau players are stuck with the same old stuff for a couple of years.

Tau don't need twenty new units. The flexibility of the Tau Codex's wargear selection system for suits and the way that the markerlight mechanic works means that Tau armies can feature many of the same unit entries as one another and yet play entirely differently. This, to me, is much more interesting and appealing than having a whole bunch of units specialized for different tasks.

Also, all the Tau units are good. The same cannot be said for Tyranids or Necrons. I'd rather have a Codex with a smaller selection of really solid units than one with a large variety of units, most of which are never used by any serious player.

Maybe GW does have a plan. I was thinking about this the other day. Now, first off I'll say I don't particularly like this thought, but it seems plausible.

With the recent trend in releases, that being only include rules for models released at launch, what if they plan to add new units later through WD pack-ins like the recent Chaos add-ons. And then, as an incentive, these get added to the iBooks Codex.

It doesn't seem to stretch the imagination too far.

Bring back Chapter Approved.