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 RiTides wrote:
Yeah and I edited my post above (and will check the PM!). Honestly it's great to have folks like you posting here that love AoS! It's just that I don't think folks who don't (or think it should be retconned) should be labeled grognards (earlier post) / elitist / etc!

It's great to have folks that play different games / styles / etc, again it's what makes Dakka great. I just hope you see Dakka isn't a monolith, part of the reason AoS is viewed negatively here is because it is in many places, and people post here from many places!

There are positive posters for it too, and both can participate without either being elitist or anything like that. It's just a shame GW didn't introduce the game differently to avoid some of the strife created by replacing one game with a very different one, and thus putting some gamers at loggerheads.

But cheers for your post here (and apologies if anything in mine was too strong) I appreciate the debate and having multiple views Donnelly makes the forum a better place!

No worries man I understand I have a very strong and aggressive personality, it's actually one of the things that helps me sell. Also gamers are extremely passionate folk and temperatures will rise from time to time.

Yeah, gamers are passionate and that's what I love . Cheers for the spirited discussion (and the great PM), the discussion is what makes this place and others like it great! Hope you stick around Dakka - we're not all haters, honest

Manchu wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
since a lot of posters here reference him

Yeah that is the crux, I think. This tangent started because a poster decided to make an appeal to authority and mikhaila, for better or worse, was the authority in question. It was a bad argument but I understand why the guy made it because mikhaila is an opinion leader around here, including about AoS.

If you are referring to my earlier post where I quoted mik, I wasn't doing it as an appeal to authority, rather I was pointing out that we have examples of store owners who are struggling to move AoS while I haven't seen any store owners talking about how AoS is doing really well for them (maybe I just missed them).

This is why the anecdotal evidence is pointing to AoS failing.

Sure, maybe the Dakka poll isn't all encompassing of the community, but there aren't really any polls that show counter evidence. I can find a couple that paint a similar picture as the Dakka one, only 1 poll I'd consider positive from the boardgamegeek forum which only has 90 respondents. The Dakka poll has the most respondents of any I've seen and frankly I think it's overly dismissive to think those 550 people don't represent at least some slice of the actual community. Even if you consider Dakka an echo chamber of negativity, the number of people voting on the poll is quite a bit larger than the actual posters.

Sure, maybe mik (and the 3 or 4 other store owners that have posted) aren't all encompassing of global sales. But in the absence of store owners providing counter evidence there's not much else to say.

And sure you read all the comments online and you know that it's only a tiny fraction of an even tinier fraction of people making those comments. But then you walk in to your local store and see no one playing AoS, less than was even playing WHFB before, a picture starts to form.

It may be the wrong picture, I don't think anyone is denying that it could be wrong. But sometimes you want to draw a conclusion from limited information and in this case I think the best conclusion is "AoS appears to be struggling".

We'll never know for sure, the next financials might give a bit of an idea but GW released Calth in the same reporting period so we aren't going to know for sure. Even if GW drop AoS in the future we won't know for sure what the cause was, maybe GW never intended AoS to be more than a short run.

Just because we'll never know for 100% sure doesn't mean we can't talk about it or that we can't get some strong hints about what is going on. Even out in the real world you have to often make judgements, make decisions, give advice, etc when you have incomplete information. More often than not you just make educated guesses.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Copies of Dreadfleet were apparently destroyed because they didn't sell. Users frequently report independents with multiple copies still in stock of this "limited" box.

This is not a ringing endorsement.

This isn't stop liking what I don't like, it's stop trying to persuade people the sky is yellow because you liked the little plastic ships.

what are you even on about???
it is totally neutral to just point out that some people did give positive reviews of the game, and even more had good things to say about the models...
if jono is going to say that a game is crap, as if that is an indisputable fact, i am going to point out that some people disagree...
that has nothing to do with me trying to convince anyone of anything...

i do like the little plastic ships, though...
the box contents were all beautifully done, and the novel is a fun read...
i've enjoyed a lot of the AoS models, too...
as long as the studio continues to do good work, i'll continue to say good things about it, regardless of the bumbling moves of the execs...

cheers
jah

@AllSeeingSkink

Thanks for clarifying your intention. What you wrote, however:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
When the likes of mikhaila says this, it's not really encouraging.

is a textbook appeal to authority.

If you check the last couple of pages, you will find posts from the manager of my LGS where AoS has regular sales. You may have similarly missed those kind of examples in other threads or on other sites.

"AoS is struggling" is one conclusion and although it is impossible for anyone here to prove I have never said it is not true. My contribution has been (a) the evidence we do have is inherently biased, (b) we do not have the information we actually need to answer the question, and (c) the evidence we do have could support alternative conclusions.

 DrNo172000 wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 DrNo172000 wrote:
Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain

Ok I asked this half rhetorically to the thread before but I am going to specifically ask you it now.

Do you blame store owners and GW's salesmen for the failure of Dreadfleet, or was it a bad game that did not sell because it did not appeal to people?

Sales is not just about selling on the spot, it's also about understanding the market and ordering appropriately, if you have an unknown like Dreadfleet or more recently the Assasinorum game you bring in very small quantities, if you do a huge buy in and it flops and now you are out thousands that is 100% managements fault.

So just to be clear you are saying it is the fault of the stores who still to this day have copies of Dreadfleet gathering dust in the back today that they failed to sell the product, not because it wasn't bad but because they ordered too many of an unknown?

 jonolikespie wrote:

 DrNo172000 wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 DrNo172000 wrote:
Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain

Ok I asked this half rhetorically to the thread before but I am going to specifically ask you it now.

Do you blame store owners and GW's salesmen for the failure of Dreadfleet, or was it a bad game that did not sell because it did not appeal to people?

Sales is not just about selling on the spot, it's also about understanding the market and ordering appropriately, if you have an unknown like Dreadfleet or more recently the Assasinorum game you bring in very small quantities, if you do a huge buy in and it flops and now you are out thousands that is 100% managements fault.

So just to be clear you are saying it is the fault of the stores who still to this day have copies of Dreadfleet gathering dust in the back today that they failed to sell the product, not because it wasn't bad but because they ordered too many of an unknown?

My FLGS has four copies of Dreadfleet for some reason. They don't sell because no one wants it. Why they don't want it? That's up to the individual. But I think it's safe to say that most people (not all) think or have heard its a crap game.
I like the movie Pathfinder. It's a crap movie, but I like it. Liking something and thinking its actually good are two separate things. Dreadfleet is a crap game. You may like it, but it's still a crap game. And liking the pretty models says nothing about the game itself. The models may be amazing, but people that want a good game aren't going to buy it.

Oh man, why did this thread get moved over here? :-/

Age Of Sigmar is failing. I have justified reasons to believe this.

First there's my personal experience. None of the Warhammer Fantasy players or miniature gaming groups in my local area (NONE!) like Age of Sigmar. Now this is in the United States, in a part of the country where GW stores are few and far between and all the gaming is done in peoples houses and FLGS. There are lots of gamers though. I have asked many miniature wargamers (both people I've gamed with and people I don't know) and the owners of the different FLGS in my area. All reactions are universally negative, without any kind of prompting other than "So what about that new Warhammer game?". Profoundly negative. Everybody hates it.

Second, there's common sense. Games Workshop obviously pissed off a huge group of Warhammer Fantasy players. Logically for them to break even they'd have to attract a new customer base equal to the number of customers that have left. To make more money they'd need to attract an even wider audience. Take a look at those prices, the game, the kind of media coverage and general popularity Age of Sigmar has. It's not going great. It makes a certain amount of sense that if you screw over your past customers and replace their favorite franchise with a half baked, poorly developed, piece of gak product you'd fail.

And there's more concrete evidence. I don't have sales figures or anything. But every time I hear another case of the starter set getting heavily discounted because it won't sell or the owner of a gaming store giving an anecdote about how badly it's going it ads another page to the incredible AOS book of fail. And what about the internet? Do you really think the amount of angry craziness and overwhelming negativity that surrounded AOS was just a few trolls? That was the voice of the majority of gamers. And now that it's quieted, don't think that's because people like it or are buying it. They've just moved on. Age of Sigmar sucks.

 DrNo172000 wrote:
Your right all we have is post like this

"AOS gave them a small bump in fantasy sales, but they lost hugely with no 40k sales in those months. My sales are down 65% for the last 4 months on GW. "
"GW found a way to cost me thousands of dollars in sales each month"

Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain

This is a supply issue, resulting from Games Workshop taking a few months off from supplying Mikhaila with new 40k releases. Mikhaila can't make Games Workshop produce new 40k releases to sell to him, so your attempts to blame him for GW's actions are absurd. Even if Mikhaila replaced those lost 40k sales with a substitute, that substitute is inevitably going to be inferior to the status quo, because if it wasn't then 40k would be the substitute and the other product would be the one he sells all the time.

 Bottle wrote:
Oh man, why did this thread get moved over here? :-/

Agreed... It was nice to keep all the theorizing from people with no interest in the game about why it's failing out of the forum for a few days.

 DrNo172000 wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Yeah and I edited my post above (and will check the PM!). Honestly it's great to have folks like you posting here that love AoS! It's just that I don't think folks who don't (or think it should be retconned) should be labeled grognards (earlier post) / elitist / etc!

It's great to have folks that play different games / styles / etc, again it's what makes Dakka great. I just hope you see Dakka isn't a monolith, part of the reason AoS is viewed negatively here is because it is in many places, and people post here from many places!

There are positive posters for it too, and both can participate without either being elitist or anything like that. It's just a shame GW didn't introduce the game differently to avoid some of the strife created by replacing one game with a very different one, and thus putting some gamers at loggerheads.

But cheers for your post here (and apologies if anything in mine was too strong) I appreciate the debate and having multiple views Donnelly makes the forum a better place!

No worries man I understand I have a very strong and aggressive personality, it's actually one of the things that helps me sell. Also gamers are extremely passionate folk and temperatures will rise from time to time.

You're definitely right in one sense. I've seen someone have a lump come into their throat, and jaw stick out, when talking about 8th edition being replaced by AoS. A grown man.

But, that is what can happen when you've seen something you've given hundreds of hours of your life to get replaced, and a buzzing, ongoing tournament scene get the legs taken out from under it. I don't think its the fact that GW released a new game, but more that they removed 8th WHFB from sale; it almost inexplicable to me, and I think a lot of people view it as GW just cash hunting at the expense of their long-term/veteran player base. Many of course had a real 'love', and we all know how easily that can then go onto the flip side.

That is the only time I have seen someone get really passionate and upset about wargaming. I think for the most part gamers are creative, patient people (if you dive into it, the hobby requires it). But this was a real ugly move by GW, and its engendered an ugly, heated response from people who are usually pretty calm and just doing something they enjoy; either from those who feel loss and anger, or those who don't and shrug about it. A lot of clash on public forums is the result.

 Pacific wrote:
You're definitely right in one sense. I've seen someone have a lump come into their throat, and jaw stick out, when talking about 8th edition being replaced by AoS. A grown man.

But, that is what can happen when you've seen something you've given hundreds of hours of your life to get replaced, and a buzzing, ongoing tournament scene get the legs taken out from under it.

Eh, that would have been true about 6, and to some extent, 7. But 8 was on life support and the tournament scene reflected that. they were pale shadows of the massive events in the mid 2000's.

 jonolikespie wrote:

So just to be clear you are saying it is the fault of the stores who still to this day have copies of Dreadfleet gathering dust in the back today that they failed to sell the product, not because it wasn't bad but because they ordered too many of an unknown?

Well, yes, if store owners over-ordered a product that they knew nothing about, that turned out to be something that their customers didn't want, that pretty much is on them.

If the game is bad, then that's certainly the fault of whoever made it. But the choice to stock it or not is entirely the store owner's.

I think that if it is failing, it's just the perfect storm of things both in and out of GW. these are why I think it is on life support in no particular order.

KoW had just enough time out to be poised to take customers who wanted to keep playing a massed fantasy battle.
Current concepts of crowd sourcing and social media in general make it not only possible to both write and play test rules with thousands of people across several countries, but to also make them adapt to any new model from any manufacturer. This makes 9th Age not only possible, but a potential framework to keep themselves proped up. (working in conjunction with model makers to release rules for models in development.)

for the non-massed crowds, there is WM/H for extreme tactical rules, and Frostgrave for a more loose experience. (along with Infinity, Malifaux, and a million kickstarters. Not to mention Osprey seems to crank out books like they are worried print is dying.)

Lack of communication on what was going to be released and when. This would have been a perfect time for GW to issue a letter of intent to players, and let them know what the plan over the next 12 months was going to be. A perfect example is if you like CHoas and picked up the Battletome for Khorne, just to learn that Archaon was coming and would have prefered an undivided list.

Too much focus on the Stormcast Eternals. They got a full army release, while nothing has really come out for any other army aside from Khorne. (I am aware there have been re-pack releases for Sylvaneth, Skaven, and Seraphon but these recived no new models.) I feel it should have dropped with two boxed sets, with two armies in each for for armies total. Skaven and Sylvaneth would have made a great box, they are even shown fighting in the realm of life.

Introducing an entire new realm in which to fight, with sparse details about the nuts and bolts of how life works in Azyrheim or anywhere. Across many novels, three giant sourcebooks, and three army books I still have no clear idea who is doing what and why aside from a Valhalla-esque "eternal war." There is more nuts and bolts information and world building in a single army book form last edition then has been released for AoS so far. Pick up any army book and you learn where they live, who they hunt, who hunts them, motivations, key movers and shakers, pivital battles both won and lost, and how that faction lives.

Loose rules with no errata or FAQ, game breaking warscroll combos, unlimited summoning, fast movement, huge charge radius, and no guide for how to build the army.

Bait and switch with the free rules. The point of free rules was hammered in time and time again by GW, until you find that "out of the box" playing really only works with scenarios. They are either in 80 dollar books which only have a few, or micro-transactions from the app. Battle formations are also treated the same way.

Cost of miniatures. Not only on an individual basis, but going to the website has packages ranging from 300.00-1,500.00 I don't think that looks good to potential new players.

Unclear message to long beards. I think the message could have been handled better. the con showing was pretty sparse, and the rumor that one rep stated that the comedy rules were to make fun of older players was a bad idea. Most older players want to know where their army is in the Realms, or if they are even going to be supported. (As a personal aside I lucked out in this category, I play Skaven. I could not imagine if I played Empire, Brettonia, any Elf Army, or Dwarfs.)

Difficulty playing pick-up games. This usually starts with what a guy in my shop calls the "negotiation phase" of the game. When I go to play, I have to find out how much they brought, what comps they might want to use, what scenario we want to play, how are we going to deploy, and if there are any rules we are not going to use and any that might need to be added
Clear intent what kind of game it is. I feel like it's being pushed as a wargame, when a RPG-style moniker would probably be better served. I've found WAY more traction teaching AoS to tabletop RPG players then I have to wargamers.

Not suited for large public gatherings. GW no longer holds Gamesdays or Grand Tournaments, and AoS is entirely unfit for a competition tournament. It also doesn't have an Apocalypse element, nor does it really work with more then four players.

Hatred of AoS. I add this one because hate for AoS has reached the pitch where it is a clear point of contention working against it. At my local GW a local whale who spends easily 500 a month on product bashes AoS constantly. Not enough to warrant getting tossed, he just grumbles a lot even while playing. New players in general pick up that 40K is the way to go. I've even gotten some good-natured ribbing for playing AoS, which is not so healthy for the game while I'm playing someone that's new to wargaming. All that takes place at an actual GW store with a shopkeep who has no issues telling people to badmouth GW elsewhere and not to discuss other game properties in front of new customers.

Hatred of AoS. I make this point twice. It has gotten to the point where you need to brace yourself before talking about AoS, and I don't mean just on forums. I post on SA, Warseer, and here-By far Dakka is the most AoS friendly. I travel a lot for work and I've learned to not even ask new shops I visit about AoS. not only do they have to feel they have to defend their position to sell or not to sell it, invariably anyone else in the store chimes in and it's obvious that the topic is sensitive. Hell at another local shop I understand the owner has instituted a "no comment" rule on anyone in the store while an AoS game is taking place. He started the rule becuase people would be trying to play AoS and the discussion on the merits of the game would reach an unsavory pitch. I play AoS, I understand it's flaws, but I don't think it should get the sheer animosity it brings.

Battle of Calth. This is the best "bang for your buck" army starter I've seen since the first 30 marine tac box. for 150 dollars you have an army of 38 miniatures that is instantly usable in 40k for around 1,000 points. it fulfills all the basic force organization chart needs, and if you buy two you can field a number of 40k formations. I know its also anecdotal, but it had the exact opposite effect of AoS on the boards, people talking about it flying off the shelf and how many boxes they were gonna purchase. If I were a betting man, I would bet that Battle of Calth will have outsold AoS starter boxes by christmas if it hasn't already. If I was new to the game, I think I would choose 40K over fantasy even if I preferred wizards and dragons, assuming I hung out in a game store for a few hours.

GW drops games that don't match their internal quotas. No matter how much it is or isn't selling, if they dropped WHFB because it wasn't not making enough profit then AoS will need to exceed WHFB sales. If they do not meet the internal sales quotas laid out by the company, then it will either be dropped or changed. Rumors are flying about all the stuff they have in the pipeline for AoS, and I would think they would have a clear arc of what they are releasing no matter what, say one or two years. Once that is done they will evaluate. I think the only thing that would cause a sudden shift was if AoS was a complete disaster, and of course we have no way of knowing if that has happened.


These are just my thoughts. I play AoS, and I do look for ways to constantly improve it without moving into comp territory. For various reasons my only gaming option is a GW store. If I want to play a fantasy game thats wizards and dragons and not tanks and guns, AoS is pretty much the only game in town for me. I wrote this in response to the clear thread title. I do feel like AoS has a lot of potential and there are some facets to it that no other game has really tapped. GW is gambling on something that is so fantastically different then the norm, that I can't help but want to see how it ends. The downside to it being so entirely beyond the pale is that I just don't feel that it will survive without some drastic changes either within the company or with the outside factors. (9th age and KoW continuing to prop up fantasy sales due to the need for figures, that sort of thing.)

I don't think AoS needs to exceed WHFB sales, because it's a lot cheaper to produce.

No rules, no army books, no armies even except the new Sigmarines and some other models like the new Kaos Knights and floating wizard. These are all very expensive, as are the few books available.

I think they can afford to sell a lot fewer units, because the running costs are much lower.

That was a very good post pox, thank you for sharing it! I feel my opinions of AOS match up pretty similarly.

 insaniak wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

So just to be clear you are saying it is the fault of the stores who still to this day have copies of Dreadfleet gathering dust in the back today that they failed to sell the product, not because it wasn't bad but because they ordered too many of an unknown?

Well, yes, if store owners over-ordered a product that they knew nothing about, that turned out to be something that their customers didn't want, that pretty much is on them.

If the game is bad, then that's certainly the fault of whoever made it. But the choice to stock it or not is entirely the store owner's.

I don't think fault is a good word in this situation, at least as far as the store placing orders.

Managing cashflow and inventory is one of the toughest jobs for a game store. A game store stocks a wide variety of items. You need to, because you can't sell what you don't have, and you want to keep your customers happy.A store has thousands of items in stock. As an example, I'm in the process of cutting my Flames of War inventory back, and we just did a count of what we are keeping. We are getting rid of specialized models, things only used in one of the books, a lot of early war, the non-major powers, and slow sellers. This will leave me with about 360 different blisters, 130 boxes, 20 books, and scenery. Over 400 different items just for one game. Inventory value of about 10k at wholesale.

A store only has so much money to put towards stock, so it can get spread pretty thin. To spread it thicker, to you need more cash. Need to make more money, get more sales. This means you need items that sell more than one copy now and then. Magic is huge for many stores because it's a small amount of items that sell in huge numbers and you turn your cash over and over. In many stores it's Magic that pays the rent and provides the profit that lets them stock other products. You are always looking for new product that you can sell, and a lot of the time it's new product coming out that does best. And of course, you have the least sales data on that new product.

You can extrapolate from similar products, ask for pre-orders from customers, and run events or marketing to hype the product and sell more of it. But really, you'll find out a lot about how that product sells after it hits the shelves. And in the case of GW, we get little to nothing in info ahead of time. (My info 90% of the time is from rumors and posts here on Dakka, not from GW.)

So when new games come out, it's a crapshoot a lot of the time. If you under order, you lose some sales. If you over order, you lose money on non-returnable games sitting in your back room. In some cases you can re-order an item that you run out of. Other times it's gone forever. And if you over order, you can hope to get more sales over time, dump the item at a lesser cost, or find some other channel than your store to sell it.

I and my staff make over 1000 decisions on what to order on new product, every single month. We have overage each month. Minimizing overage works towards maximizing profits. But larger sales also generates more profits. Obviously, the two work against each other. I can minimize lost sales by having stock at hand and raising overage, or minimize overage by selling out of everything and losing sales and profits. No crystal ball to help with finding that sweet spot where it works perfectly.

So the guy who ordered too many dreadfleet. I think that was all of us. It just wasn't that good, didn't have any excitement to it. We all wanted another space hulk, but no one got it. GW destroyed a ton of copies. Retailers have copies gathering dust. Customers got a less than stellar game. But, we didn't know that at the time, when GW reps call and tell you about the awesome new game they have for you. Even with pre-orders, its a guess what you need. I got in 90 of spacehulk and sold them all. I got in 20 dreadfleet and had two left over. A year and a half later i still had those 2 copies. I put them at half off and sold them. Pretty good, all in all.

Now is GW "at fault" for putting out game that didnt sell great? Hard to say. Compared to most boardgames, it actually did sell great. But not compared to Spacehulk. The numbers and data i have on Assinorium make Dreadfleet look awesome by comparison. I order 5 copie at the main store, and 2 at my other store. Sold 1 and 0. 6 copies left. Those eventually went to ebay at cost plus shipping, and all gone now. Was it a good boardgame? Certainly not for the price, based on customer feedback. They didnt want it. 125.00 buys some very nice boardgames. Or several boardgames. Only GW knows how many they actually sold or didn't sell, so it's hard to judge it's success. But it wasn't Space Hulk. It wasn't even Dreadfleet. If it was a bad game, or a failure, yes, GW has only themselves to blame, but it's not easy making games, and not always obvious what is good/not good.

So to summarize that wall of text: For a retailer, over ordering isn't a 'fault', it's just what happens on a continuous basis. Part of the business.

Very interesting read mikhaila.

I was going to reply to the same post but I was just going to make a joke about how stores that only ordered 2 copies of dreadfleet and couldn't sell both of them clearly overordered

Interesting that the assassins game did worse than dread fleet in your experience!

I think the last episode of Face Hammer had some good points. I recommend the podcast. They're quite liking the game and the growing tournament scene in the UK, but they emphasize there needs to be someone/an organization leading the "baseline rules" charge that everyone can work off of.

For those who still don't think it can be played competitively, I recommend Face Hammer and Heelan Hammer.

http://www.facehammer.co.uk
http://heelanhammer.com

There's a great game and great ideas in AoS, and I think there are also some clear flubs in the launch. GW seems fairly dedicated to this project, and I hope it can address the biggest complaints.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Very interesting read mikhaila.

I was going to reply to the same post but I was just going to make a joke about how stores that only ordered 2 copies of dreadfleet and couldn't sell both of them clearly overordered

Except that wouldn't really be a joke. If they ordered 2 and couldn't sell them, then they did overorder.

This is the problem with stocking GW currently, as mikhaila mentioned... Because they provide no real pre-order information, stores have to guess whether or not any given product is going to be good, which makes ordering anything at all a bit of a risk.

Frankly, if I was opening a games store tomorrow, I wouldn't even consider stocking Games Workshop product for just that reason.

 insaniak wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Very interesting read mikhaila.

I was going to reply to the same post but I was just going to make a joke about how stores that only ordered 2 copies of dreadfleet and couldn't sell both of them clearly overordered

Except that wouldn't really be a joke. If they ordered 2 and couldn't sell them, then they did overorder.

This is the problem with stocking GW currently, as mikhaila mentioned... Because they provide no real pre-order information, stores have to guess whether or not any given product is going to be good, which makes ordering anything at all a bit of a risk.

Frankly, if I was opening a games store tomorrow, I wouldn't even consider stocking Games Workshop product for just that reason.

You wouldn't be the first store down here in the merry old land of Aus(tralia) to do that either. I've seen a couple now that don't.
My local Good Games didn't when it opened, nearly a year later it got in a small stand of GW products but it seems like it's been a waste of money for them.

I wonder if this is a uniquely Australian thing at this point or if FLGSs in other places are at the point were they can survive without GW as a games store - not a Magic store?

I just saw the new prices on the Chaos AoS releases...and if anyone wants to know why AoS may be failing...that would be exhibit #1.

The previous plastic Chaos Knight kit came out in 2008 at $25 for 5 Knights, and even with their prices having risen at a rate outpacing that of inflation to $33 in 7 years, they're still only as expensive (as an entire unit) as a single model of their (ostensible) replacement. The Varanguard are $100 for 3. Same material, generally the same unit, granted the new guys are more dynamic and very impressive looking, but not something you couldn't substitute the older guys for.

They're not the same type of unit, though. The Varanguard are more like 3 mounted heroes than Chaos Knights. Edit: That said, I'm in favour of lower prices on everything in general. It would have been nice to buy these guys individually. I think the biggest pricing mistake so far is the Liberators box. I can't see why someone would buy that and not the Judicators/Paladins.

 insaniak wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Very interesting read mikhaila.

I was going to reply to the same post but I was just going to make a joke about how stores that only ordered 2 copies of dreadfleet and couldn't sell both of them clearly overordered

Except that wouldn't really be a joke. If they ordered 2 and couldn't sell them, then they did overorder.

This is the problem with stocking GW currently, as mikhaila mentioned... Because they provide no real pre-order information, stores have to guess whether or not any given product is going to be good, which makes ordering anything at all a bit of a risk.

Frankly, if I was opening a games store tomorrow, I wouldn't even consider stocking Games Workshop product for just that reason.

They do make it tough. For example, Betrayal at Calth. The monday before pre-orders went up, i got this email: b

- A bit of product info: Isn't it great, blah blah blah! (Less info than on Dakka, actually.)
-"Don't tell anyone about this until it goes on the GW website on FRIDAY"
-We need pre-orders by WEDNESDAY
-We think you should take 70 of this 150.00 Boardgame. Your cost: 5700 dollars. Non returnable.

Now, in reality, faced with this, i expect most stores started polling their regulars and trying to get any sort of numbers together in a hope of guessing demand.

I was told that GW reps had something come back to haunt them, namely Assassinorum. Many stores did poorly with it, and didn't trust Betrayal, ordering just a couple. There was a list up on the GW site showing the stores who had the advance copies of the game to demo for a week. This was about 2 dozen in the country. Only 3 in the NE area. Those were the stores ordering 70 copies. Go back a decade and I think that number could have been 10 times as many retailers ordering 70. It's hard to trust GW with nearly 6 grand of your money these days.

Betrayal, by the way, fails as a boardgame. No boardgamer will spend 150 dollars and then spend hours putting together little army men. But as a starter army for 30k it rocks. Models are great, and lots of them.

I have to wonder at the internal workings at GW and FW. They had to do a boardgame to make 30k figures? How much better would this have been minus the boardgame plus the FW 30k rules in SC? How many would they sell? How many players would then drop hundreds on FW?

I almost wonder if GW have noticed the success of all of the various miniature boardgames kickstarters, and have decided that emulating that model is the way of the future?

 insaniak wrote:
I almost wonder if GW have noticed the success of all of the various miniature boardgames kickstarters, and have decided that emulating that model is the way of the future?

If so, GW failed to get the key point that Kickstarters are pre-orders.

Pure speculation but I think GW is skeptical about the "traditional" (last 20 years or so) model of how and where people play their games. I doubt releasing AoS without points-based list building was either an oversight due to incompetence or laziness. They may be hedging for a future where customers shop mostly online and do most of their gaming at home with friends.

I mean, it really makes no sense to judge BaC as a board game against the larger board game market. This is apparent to anyone here who thinks about it for more than a moment. I think it's also apparent to folks working at GW. So why sell models to miniatures gamers under the guise of a board game? Simple: it is actually a miniatures game with a lot of the "traditional" elements cut out because maybe it is not designed for a system of pick up play at the LGS ... just like AoS. And like AoS, the "traditional" elements have been replaced with something else which is a lower barrier to play.

Manchu wrote:
They may be hedging for a future where customers shop mostly online and do most of their gaming at home with friends.

I don't really see how it's hedging for the future to not have points based list building. If they thought most people do their purchasing online and gaming at home with friends... hedging would be still having points in case they were wrong.

I think it's the lack of hedging that has most people surprised. Even if they expect most gamers to be gaming at home with friends it's a gamble to write the game to be inappropriate for pick ups.

Friends playing at home shouldn't care whether a game has points or not. A lot of my games in the first few years of wargaming (mid to late 90's) were with friends at one of our homes and we mostly just ignored the points system anyway.