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Well over the weekend I saw 18 AoS starter box sets sell in one GW store alone and the auxiliary products connected to AoS was also walking off the shelves.

I predict that GW made millions of pounds worldwide over the weekend, far from dying it has probably given GW a heart starter.

I bet this pisses off a lot of folks. Congrats to GW.

The owner of our gaming shop ordered 20 starter boxes, 16 of them have been preordered mine included.
Not a bad deal for GW.

 infinite_array wrote:
Well, AoS managed to get me to buy $150 worth (at a 20% discount) of Empire stuff, as one of the FLGS was having a sale on their fantasy stock. I'm only another unit away from a 1000 points in KoW, so I'm heading back and hoping they still have that box of Militia/Free Company available.

My store was smart and had a big sale. I went a little nuts and bought random fantasy stuff I'll probably never play, but models that I always thought looked cool in White Dwarf :X

Magic Prerelease that day too, store was bonkers. I vaguely recall people saying how silly it was to launch on the same weekend as a MtG release date, but that actually worked out, I think. A whole bunch of free eyeballs looking at big stacks of gold boxes with nice artwork. If I ever feel like I'm spending too much on hobby, all I have to do is look at the people who insist that they must own every single Magic card ever printed and I feel good


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 wuestenfux wrote:
The owner of our gaming shop ordered 20 starter boxes, 16 of them have been preordered mine included.
Not a bad deal for GW.

Wow... even better deal for the store That's easy money for an independent.

Is that more or less what WHFB 9th would have sold?

Will those sales keep going, or will they drop off once people have played it, a la Dreadfleet?

It could be a runaway success, but only if it's still selling well in a couple of months.

 jah-joshua wrote:

i am not convinced that another company buying GW would automatically result in a better product...

In my opinion we have now reached the stage where just about any company who bought GW would do at least as good as the current management. A company with at least some idea of how the Wargames market actually works (or any market for that matter) would do a better job than GW.

GW has been undermining and defacing its own games for years and they have now shown themselves perfectly willing to pull the plug on their core games rather than try to actually fix them. They can no longer be trusted.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:

i am not convinced that another company buying GW would automatically result in a better product...

In my opinion we have now reached the stage where just about any company who bought GW would do at least as good as the current management. A company with at least some idea of how the Wargames market actually works (or any market for that matter) would do a better job than GW.

GW has been undermining and defacing its own games for years and they have now shown themselves perfectly willing to pull the plug on their core games rather than try to actually fix them. They can no longer be trusted.

Speak for yourself -- I can trust that they'll keep making cool miniatures that I like, and games that I find enjoyable.

I've never had as much fun since 1988 playing 40k as I have with the Post 2015 factions, and Age of Sigmar was an entertaining diversion the one night we tried it out -- and the models are awesome. There hasn't been a collection I've been excited for models about like the Sigmarites and Adeptus Mechanicus, since the Dark Eldar plastics.

In the last 7 months, the only thing two significant things they've done that I didn't like were: they shouldn't have split the 2 AdMech books, IMO, and the new synthetic round brushes are a terrible replacement for the old Kolinsky round brushes. But I mean, whatever. I'll live with owning separate books, and I don't really use GW brushes other than drybrushes anyways.

Herzlos wrote:
Is that more or less what WHFB 9th would have sold?

Will those sales keep going, or will they drop off once people have played it, a la Dreadfleet?

It could be a runaway success, but only if it's still selling well in a couple of months.

Most people I know (me included) bought the box because the minis in it are pretty cool and they can either use them for 8th Ed., Kings of War (Basileans, anyone?) or even 40k. SOME might even play AoS with it ...
But those people will mostly NOT buy follow-up products (with follow-up silly prices). Let's face it, the box is a very good deal. Everything else GW is gonna serve up - not so much.
So I predict sales will go down hard, once the initial hype about the starterbox wears off.

I don't hope for any company to fail. Why would i?

I too hope GW stays and improves on some points, like many other answered here (and above all bring back Epic :-)

In regard to Age of Sigmar i kind of suspect this might not be a bad thing in the long run. WHFB did not do much good anyway (i liked the current edition, but many did not) and i like the new background more than the old more generic background.
And i also suspect that more depth and rules will come in the future to better serve bigger games and competitive games.
This is just the beginning.

And unlike many other people: i have patience.
I'ts WAY to early to Judge or predict. Maybe by the end of this year a usefull review and prediction can be made, but not now.

And in any case, i hope this does GW good.

And if i have to predict something, i predict it will do GW good.

Personally, I got into Warhammer back in the long-ago because of the generic background.

Mutter wrote:

Most people I know (me included) bought the box because the minis in it are pretty cool and they can either use them for 8th Ed., Kings of War (Basileans, anyone?) or even 40k. SOME might even play AoS with it ...
But those people will mostly NOT buy follow-up products (with follow-up silly prices). Let's face it, the box is a very good deal. Everything else GW is gonna serve up - not so much.
So I predict sales will go down hard, once the initial hype about the starterbox wears off.

That's part of my thinking; the Sigmarites will make pretty cool Blood Angels (they already look like the Sanguinary Guard or whatever they are called) or some sort of ancient terminators.

I'm curious as to how many people are buying AoS for Aos, or for cheap(ish) conversion fodder?

 Talys wrote:

Speak for yourself

That's all anyone can do.

Once someone has bought a box for the figures he has got the game rules and fluff book so he might easily give it a quick go and like it even if he intends the figures to be used as Space Marines.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Speak for yourself

That's all anyone can do.

The irony gave me lockjaw!

 Achaylus72 wrote:
Well over the weekend I saw 18 AoS starter box sets sell in one GW store alone and the auxiliary products connected to AoS was also walking off the shelves.

I predict that GW made millions of pounds worldwide over the weekend, far from dying it has probably given GW a heart starter.

I bet this pisses off a lot of folks. Congrats to GW.

Was there a burning smell when you were in there? You guys pay A LOT for your GW stuff lol.

Sort of related: behold the Age of Sigmar.

Once the got to have it wears off sales will drop, they always do. Going to be intresting to see how long AoS last in the long run. I am yet to see anybody buy something for AoS, matter of fact the WD with the free mini was still sitting on the shelf at my FLGS when I was there yesterday. Of course I live near the small city of Youngstown, Ohio where people rather spend their money on hookers and blow then on games.

"Most of my money I spent on women and drink, the rest of it I wasted."

If you have WDs left I should buy a few of them, they should go for good money on eBay.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
"Most of my money I spent on women and drink, the rest of it I wasted."

If you have WDs left I should buy a few of them, they should go for good money on eBay.

Just looked that WD issue up on eBay and its selling for 5x the price or more. Guess I will call the shop and tell them to put them up on eBay. What's so special about that issue, the miniature did not look to be anything special

If I were you I would get the WDs on ebay, I could not get one for cheaper than £25, needless to say I did not bother, but there are plenty of people out there will to pay silly money for the free mini.

 Chute82 wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
"Most of my money I spent on women and drink, the rest of it I wasted."

If you have WDs left I should buy a few of them, they should go for good money on eBay.

Just looked that WD issue up on eBay and its selling for 5x the price or more. Guess I will call the shop and tell them to put them up on eBay. What's so special about that issue, the miniature did not look to be anything special

Mostly, it is the first 'free' miniature that they have included with a magazine in years... plus the rules for AoS.

Not worth it for me - I would be buying the miniature and throwing away the magazine - but it might become valuable as a collectors' item.

The Auld Grump - I wonder how much the old Free Necron issue is going for, if it still has the Necron enclosed?...

I picked up a starter box this weekend mostly because it was on sale for $90 at my FLGS, and that was a great deal for the amount of plastic you get in it. They had a some on the shelf and I saw a bunch behind the counter with names on em for pre orders I guess. They were running an intro-to-AOS tourney and everyone seemed to really be enjoying it.

I certainly don't want to see GW fail, as much as I dislike a lot of their corporate decisions (especially the moronic "nothing exists till a week before it's released" idea).

I've always loved the models and I'm a model builder and painter first, so as long as they continue making awesome models I want to collect I will continue to buy them. I'm even happy to pay the full retail price to support my FLGS rather than buying online. I don't really get to play too often, when I do I manage to still have fun, so that's all that matters to me in the end.

That said, I also plan to pick up the Kings of War rulebook in August and have 2 different games to play with the same minis

 Achaylus72 wrote:
Well over the weekend I saw 18 AoS starter box sets sell in one GW store alone and the auxiliary products connected to AoS was also walking off the shelves.

I predict that GW made millions of pounds worldwide over the weekend, far from dying it has probably given GW a heart starter.

I bet this pisses off a lot of folks. Congrats to GW.

To make £1m in revenue at UK RRP, GW would need to shift over 16 500 copies. Now, I have no doubt they've probably shifted a fair few, but I'm not sure that there's simply enough customers in the GW ecosystem to have "made millions of pounds" (made implying a profit)

Why would it be the final nail? They are still making a profit? Aren't they?

 Reality-Torrent wrote:
Why would it be the final nail? They are still making a profit? Aren't they?

They are as of the last report, and likely will still be after this report.

The discussion being that GW has been making steadily less money. Some believe that AoS will turn out to be a huge flop and represent everything GW does wrong with their games and general practices, and thus accelerate their potential flop.

Others believe AoS is quite good and will represent growth for Fantasy and GW at large.

Time will tell.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

The Auld Grump - I wonder how much the old Free Necron issue is going for, if it still has the Necron enclosed?...

I still have the Necron in its blister, but not the WD

I am sure AOS will do well to start with. The boxed set is good value. The question is whether the game has legs for the long term. I can't see GW shifting a lot of £30 dice shakers and £20 plastic measuring widgets.

They need to put out plenty of good kits.

Anyone kind of hopeing AoS is the final nail for GW?

No. I rather like the HH books from FW, and I'm looking forward to finally using my new Space Marine codex this week.

I don't like 7th edition as much as 5th edition, but it's still fun.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I am sure AOS will do well to start with. The boxed set is good value. The question is whether the game has legs for the long term. I can't see GW shifting a lot of £30 dice shakers and £20 plastic measuring widgets.

They need to put out plenty of good kits.

I think a big chunk of money for GW will be books -- even though rules are free, the story isn't, so to speak. For models of any of these 30-ish model games, I don't see the revenue from people who treat the models as game pieces and play casually going much more than... $400 an army? And at most one of those a year. That's a best case scenario, I think.

The modelling crowd who just wants to buy pretty plastic was buying pretty Fantasy plastic before anyhow, so these aren't really new sales, though I think the Sigmarites are a popular enough aesthetic to generate some additional non-gaming sales. Being one of the modelling-only Fantasy buyers before, I rarely bought anything that wasn't a "prestige model", like Treeman or Bloodthirster.

But please, they're METAL 20GBP measuring widget things! The metal doohickey is actually a programming wedge for a Kastellan Robot, and the cord can be used as a garrote in your next kill job, because we all know the whole nerd gamer thing is the perfect cover for CIA assassin. And, you can slip it into your finger as brass knuckles. Plus it's bulletproof. It's only 20GBP... how can you beat all THAT? You'd think the preorders would be sold out just from the multi-class undercover Datasmith + contract killer + wargamer niche.

Piles of AoS boxes by the door of my FLGS with the contents laid out to look at. It was a MtG prerelease this week but I didn't see much interest in the boxes from anyone coming into the shop. Two kids arrived and moved a few boxes on the table to make space to play Yu Gi Oh. It looked like a hell of a lot of boxes to sell.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Reality-Torrent wrote:
Why would it be the final nail? They are still making a profit? Aren't they?

They are as of the last report, and likely will still be after this report.

The discussion being that GW has been making steadily less money. Some believe that AoS will turn out to be a huge flop and represent everything GW does wrong with their games and general practices, and thus accelerate their potential flop.

Others believe AoS is quite good and will represent growth for Fantasy and GW at large.

Time will tell.

I have a feeling that AoS is more likely to bring some new fuel to a game system that died of a long time ago.

 Talys wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I am sure AOS will do well to start with. The boxed set is good value. The question is whether the game has legs for the long term. I can't see GW shifting a lot of £30 dice shakers and £20 plastic measuring widgets.

They need to put out plenty of good kits.

I think a big chunk of money for GW will be books -- even though rules are free, the story isn't, so to speak. For models of any of these 30-ish model games, I don't see the revenue from people who treat the models as game pieces and play casually going much more than... $400 an army? And at most one of those a year. That's a best case scenario, I think.

The modelling crowd who just wants to buy pretty plastic was buying pretty Fantasy plastic before anyhow, so these aren't really new sales, though I think the Sigmarites are a popular enough aesthetic to generate some additional non-gaming sales. Being one of the modelling-only Fantasy buyers before, I rarely bought anything that wasn't a "prestige model", like Treeman or Bloodthirster.

But please, they're METAL 20GBP measuring widget things! The metal doohickey is actually a programming wedge for a Kastellan Robot, and the cord can be used as a garrote in your next kill job, because we all know the whole nerd gamer thing is the perfect cover for CIA assassin. And, you can slip it into your finger as brass knuckles. Plus it's bulletproof. It's only 20GBP... how can you beat all THAT? You'd think the preorders would be sold out just from the multi-class undercover Datasmith + contract killer + wargamer niche.

If you look really close I think the measuring device was made by Tiffany & Co. Lol