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I walked into my local store to peruse the new codex, but they were all shipped shrink wrapped and unable to browse. This wasn't the case with any other codex, as far as I know. Models like the Wraithknight were shipped sans shrinkwrap, allowing people to inspect the sprues out of interest without purchasing, and I had hoped this was the start of a new trend. Now I know some people will think that I shouldn't be reading books I don't intend to buy, 'this isn't a library!', but I'm sure I'm not the only one that likes to look at certain units for armies they don't own as they're waiting around trying to get a game in?

Some stores do it on their own. one of the FLGS shrinks wraps new arrivals

The store I went to had it shrinkwrapped. But I'll be picking it up at my FLGS tonight, and I'll post again if that copy was also shrinkwrapped.

I do the same thing. I've been looking for an allied detachment for my Tau army for quite some time and, before finally deciding on some Raven Guard space marines, I would pop in and browse the codexes of the armies I was considering at the time.

I understand why they shrink wrap the White Dwarf magazines but I think the codexes should remain unwrapped. Having said that I'm sure there's a reason for wrapping them up. My guess is too many people are coming in with camera phones snapping pics of stat lines and wargear so that they don't have to pay the full price for the book.


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Also, my space marine codex was shrinkwrapped at my FLGS

When the Daemons dropped, the Fantasy book was wapped but the 40k book was not. It's only a matter of time before they just do this with all the books honestly.

The first book shrink wrapped was WoC for fantasy in feb I think and then fantasy daemons were, then that was it I think.

The SM codex comes shrinkwrapped from GW. I asked at my FLGS when I bought mine, and I was informed it's GW doing it.

I honestly don't mind a bit of extra protection for my expensive book. Surely every store worth its salt will have one copy open for store use?

 drock403 wrote:
My guess is too many people are coming in with camera phones snapping pics of stat lines and wargear so that they don't have to pay the full price for the book.

That doesn't make much sense. If you want to steal the book it's much easier to download a scanned pdf, which is usually available as soon as the book is released, if not sooner.

I love taking the shrink-wrap off of a newly purchased item. I am easily excitable though...

lord_blackfang wrote:Surely every store worth its salt will have one copy open for store use?

Not... necessarily.

The FLGS I play at is more of a confederacy of several gaming groups that use the space. The problem is that someone has to pay for the property taxes and for the couple of employees, and to keep the lights on. And, at least on the 40k side, we're all a bunch of cheapskates.

The store has to scrape pretty hard to get by, which means that they do things like offer everything 40k at full retail price. Because they have to. It also means that they don't for example, have a bunch of free stuff for 40k users to use.

Now, with MTG, it's a slightly different story (they have a big box of land cards you can just draw from), but, then most of the income of the store comes from MTG.

Also, I think it kind of depends on the makeup of the store. I've played 40k in 6 FLGSs over the years, and there is a distinct difference in attitude between stores where 40k is the primary deal and/or the owner of the store is very into 40k, and stores where 40k is just another thing on the shelves, and the owner sees it as nothing more than a revenue stream.

One of the places had every employee very into 40k and fantasy, and so yeah, it had store copies of codices and rulebooks, and great terrain. At the place I play now, some, but not all of the workers play 40k, and the owner actively midldly dislikes it. No store codices or templates or anything, and he begrudgingly gives us space to house terrain, but we have to buy/make/maintain it completely on our own.

I'm all for shrinkwrapping the books..keeps some drooly anklebiter from monkey-ing up a book, only for a buyer to find a big greasy paw/mitt/pudgy digit print on some unchecked page..(and usually said print is in some nasty brown substance..that will always be unknown but suspected to be vile), I have seen to many good books get a very rough treatment this way in stores.

So always good advice..wrap your stuff up!

 Ailaros wrote:
(they have a big box of land cards you can just draw from)

Well, the difference here is that lands are free since most MTG players will throw all their spare lands/commons in the garbage if the store doesn't want them. Once you're out of your newbie days every time you draft or get a tournament prize you're getting piles of cards you don't want and can't sell. Keeping a basic land box costs the store nothing and makes draft/sealed tournaments run more efficiently, so why not do it?

A codex, on the other hand, is a $50 book. You don't want someone damaging it and preventing you from selling it, and you don't want people using the store copy as an excuse to not buy the $50 book from you. Allowing you to borrow a store copy is a service you buy by spending money there, and as a group of cheapskates you don't give the store owner any reason to do it.

I think i first saw the shrink rapped books in a fantasy one last year, first 40k i saw was the dark angels 6th.

I'm surprised GW has taken so long to do this.
Pretty much every FLGS I've been in has done his with all their books as a matter of course.

I'm fine with this as long as the store has one "store" copy that's unwrapped. I find it highly annoying to buy a codex without being able to flip through it to see what's in it. Especially give then recent price increases.