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So now that Brettonians and Tomb Kings are gone-gone-gone anyone care to speculate who will get the ax next?

Sisters of Battle - it's been 12 years since the last release and their sole plastic kit is OOP. Even if plastics are coming the metals certainly won't stay around. Half the line is already gone. Stock up now.

Inquisition - See Sisters of Battle. Only more so since they're fairly easy to convert so you don't have 10 years of screaming fans demanding they stick around.

Black Templars - It's been... what? 10 years or more since the last release and their 3 remaining products are web-only. Not even whispers of a codex or dataslate. If you need some more shoulder pads buy your $33 sprue now while it's still around.

2nd and 3rd edition IG - Now we're looking at 20 years for the Mordians, Tallarn etc, and 15 years for Steel Legion, the Vostryans are spring chickens at only 10 years since the last release. Buy em now.

Furies - GW never really developed undivided chaos into its own thing, and now seems to prefer 4-color chaos. Furies are just kind of there on their own, expect them to quietly vanish.

I know for some older fans like me it seems impossible. I remember the days when one could call the UK and order literally any model GW had ever made. And now...

None of these are bold predications (except maybe SoB), certainly nothing as bold as blowing up the whole Warhammer universe, cancelling and restarting White Dwarf, killing metal, killing and (maybe) resurrecting specialist games, so I'd say most of these will happen before April 2017.

Not only any order any model you use to be able to order by bit. I for one ordered 30 or so old school thousand suns shoulder pads and some back banners from a fantasy model

Templars have gotten 2 codexes since 5th ed *ducks*

Tau.



What? A man can hope, no?

 Drk_Oblitr8r wrote:
Templars have gotten 2 codexes since 5th ed *ducks*

ANd none at the moment.

I doubt there will be huge cuts into the 40k range.

WHFB didn't sell well and it's likely that the cut models still didn't sell well after the AoS launch. They are also producing tons of new kits for AoS.
If they discontinue 40k stuff, I think it will come along with overhauled kits.

 Hanskrampf wrote:
I doubt there will be huge cuts into the 40k range.

They will when they AoS it.

I'd worry about anything metal in the short term or finecast in the long term. The move to all plastic started a while ago and that's the only logical conclusion.

Cut my Templars GW and I'll cut you!!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Tau.



What? A man can hope, no?

No.

 Hanskrampf wrote:
I doubt there will be huge cuts into the 40k range.

I don't think 40K will be safe - it's still a bloated range (there's 5 different kinds of regular guardsman) that takes up space and inventory, and I'm pretty sure the "top down review" didn't mention fantasy at all. GW's plan is clear - get rid of everything that doesn't sell enough and isn't in plastic.

If theres something you particularly want from any range, buy it now (from eBay) before it goes OOP.

Herzlos wrote:
(there's 5 different kinds of regular guardsman)

Point of information, there's NINE kinds of guardsman

Cadian
Catachan
Stormicus Trooperarions
Tallarn
Mordian
Valhallan
Tanith
Steel Legion
Vostroyan

Oh yes, let's add another to the death watch list.

Plastic Catachans - I believe the riflemen are the oldest plastic set still in production, and the command and heavy weapons are from 2003 or so. With no sign of a Catachan codex, dataslate or even a formation in sight. And with them web exclusive for the last year or 2 I'd stock up on the Whole Army of Rambos now.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Any guesses what will happen on the Fantasy side? I've not been keeping up with the Age of Sigmarines.

Herzlos wrote:

 Hanskrampf wrote:
I doubt there will be huge cuts into the 40k range.

I don't think 40K will be safe - it's still a bloated range (there's 5 different kinds of regular guardsman) that takes up space and inventory, and I'm pretty sure the "top down review" didn't mention fantasy at all. GW's plan is clear - get rid of everything that doesn't sell enough and isn't in plastic.

If theres something you particularly want from any range, buy it now (from eBay) before it goes OOP.

My understanding was one of the main benefits of metal was to maintain the moulds and stock to make those 5 types of guardsmen don't actually take up much space. That's probably why after all these years we can still buy Tallarn and Valhallan and whatnot.

But either way, who knows what's going to happen now. Sisters of battle could just as equally get new plastics as be squatted completely, and it could happen next moth, next year or next decade.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Any guesses what will happen on the Fantasy side? I've not been keeping up with the Age of Sigmarines.

Well, only one Grand Alliance book is missing. Destruction. Orcs, Goblins and Ogres. Every named character, most finecast characters, Gnoblars, every finecast troop, all Not-Night Goblins are my guesses.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 Hanskrampf wrote:
I doubt there will be huge cuts into the 40k range.

I don't think 40K will be safe - it's still a bloated range (there's 5 different kinds of regular guardsman) that takes up space and inventory, and I'm pretty sure the "top down review" didn't mention fantasy at all. GW's plan is clear - get rid of everything that doesn't sell enough and isn't in plastic.

If theres something you particularly want from any range, buy it now (from eBay) before it goes OOP.

My understanding was one of the main benefits of metal was to maintain the moulds and stock to make those 5 types of guardsmen don't actually take up much space. That's probably why after all these years we can still buy Tallarn and Valhallan and whatnot.

But either way, who knows what's going to happen now. Sisters of battle could just as equally get new plastics as be squatted completely, and it could happen next moth, next year or next decade.

You still need to maintain equipment to make the moulds (they don't last long), to do the actual metal casting, as well as storage. Obviously that requires equipment and skills that become more costly as you reduce the number of metal items on sale. Whilst it might make sense now, it might not once they've removed all of the metal/finecast from Fantasy. If the LOTR stuff is moving to FW resin (vacuum cast), there will be even less.

Once the number of metal/finecast SKU's drop below a certain threshold, it will stop being viable to stock any of them. I'm lumping metal/finecast together since (IIRC) they use the same style of moulds/machines/casting.

I'm pretty sure finecast is worse than metal when it comes to storage. I don't think it's cast the same way as metal either. The way it's brittle with lots of bubbles, the way it's laid out on sprues with vents that aren't all the same direction (like a spin or gravity casting would be) it strikes me that they tried to adapt an injection moulding process to resin.

I really don't think it's costing them all that much to maintain the old metals, otherwise they would have been cut a while ago. I don't know how many pulls they get per mould, but 1 metal mould can probably handle an entire squad of Tallarn and isn't exactly large. They'd have a set of masters I guess that they would also need to store, but that's not a huge deal. The castings themselves don't take up nearly as much space in storage as plastics or finecast.

I'd suggest that's why we still have Tallarn and don't have Bretonnia, I'd imagine it's cheaper to have a bunch of metal IG regiments that don't sell much hanging around compared to a set of plastic Bretonnians that don't sell much.

I reckon more or less everything Fantasy released before the end times will end up in the Last Chance bin within the next few years.

At least anything that hasn't any indication of magic or otherworldlyness on their models, such as Empire state troops or plain old Dark elves with swords and shields.

Stuff like the Mutalisk or those deamonic dark elf sorscerer riders will probably be kept for a while.

Beastmen but I am hoping not...

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:
Beastmen but I am hoping not...

They already did their big cut of the Chaos Grand Alliance a few months back. If they were going to cut Beastmen, that would have been the time they would have done so.

Are Eldar aspect warriors currently in finceast or any other format for that matter? I havent checked in years.

 Ratius wrote:
Are Eldar aspect warriors currently in finceast or any other format for that matter? I havent checked in years.

Only Finecast at the moment, with the exception of Dire Avengers. I still think some Aspects would make for decent combo kits since their bodysuits are similar.

I don't see much in the 40k range getting discontinued without new kits on the way. Like I could see those old lumpy Catachans going, but only when there's a shiny new kit of them.

I'd say with a lot of those old IG models - they're still selling. Why cut something that's selling? 40k will never be AOSed or touched as long as it makes $$$$. I'd say anything they do cut will be replaced with something similar- i.e old stormtroopers were replaced with Scions. Same thing. I'd note that those cadian plastics are getting pretty old too.

Dunno bout sisters of battle though.

Fantasy on the other hand, I don't think was really selling. They had to cut range to make way for new range, they're going to target ranges that are resource intensive to keep in production and sell poorly and also don't fit the "world(AOS)" that they're trying to promote. .

That said I may be applying logic to a company that doesn't always appear to make logical decisions.

Are the "Last Chance" guys really getting the axe? I thought it was "Last chance to buy them before we rebase them on round like we did the Seraphim"?

 Zywus wrote:
I reckon more or less everything Fantasy released before the end times will end up in the Last Chance bin within the next few years.

At least anything that hasn't any indication of magic or otherworldlyness on their models, such as Empire state troops or plain old Dark elves with swords and shields.

Stuff like the Mutalisk or those deamonic dark elf sorscerer riders will probably be kept for a while.

This is my thought as well. Assuming that AoS is successful enough, I'd be surprised if they don't eliminate everything pre-End Times and replace it all with new kits. At this point, I'd be hesitant to invest in any army primarily made of pre-AoS kits.

-

 jreilly89 wrote:
Are the "Last Chance" guys really getting the axe? I thought it was "Last chance to buy them before we rebase them on round like we did the Seraphim"?

Seraphon. And no, none of the Lizardmen were ever in the 'Last Chance to Buy' category and were switched over to round bases before GW introduced the category.

-

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
So now that Brettonians and Tomb Kings are gone-gone-gone anyone care to speculate who will get the ax next?

Sisters of Battle - it's been 12 years since the last release and their sole plastic kit is OOP. Even if plastics are coming the metals certainly won't stay around. Half the line is already gone. Stock up now.

Inquisition - See Sisters of Battle. Only more so since they're fairly easy to convert so you don't have 10 years of screaming fans demanding they stick around.

Black Templars - It's been... what? 10 years or more since the last release and their 3 remaining products are web-only. Not even whispers of a codex or dataslate. If you need some more shoulder pads buy your $33 sprue now while it's still around.

2nd and 3rd edition IG - Now we're looking at 20 years for the Mordians, Tallarn etc, and 15 years for Steel Legion, the Vostryans are spring chickens at only 10 years since the last release. Buy em now.

Furies - GW never really developed undivided chaos into its own thing, and now seems to prefer 4-color chaos. Furies are just kind of there on their own, expect them to quietly vanish.

I know for some older fans like me it seems impossible. I remember the days when one could call the UK and order literally any model GW had ever made. And now...

None of these are bold predications (except maybe SoB), certainly nothing as bold as blowing up the whole Warhammer universe, cancelling and restarting White Dwarf, killing metal, killing and (maybe) resurrecting specialist games, so I'd say most of these will happen before April 2017.

SoB, Furies and old style IG discontinued for obvious reasons, they are only metal sculpts, now the dreaded Finecast. Maybe sisters will return in plastic one day, but what you just said about Black Templars is horse gak. Black Templars have been updated twice in the last 3 years through 6th and 7th Ed Space Marines. Their only products, ie, the 5 products they don't share with any other Space Marine chapter, are Helbretch, Grimaldus, Emperor's Champion (all Finecast and moved to webonly as marketing due to new plastics and Nerdthirsters of Insensate Rage), and the only other one being the Black Templars upgrade pack, which isn't going to be on display. Meanwhile, Black Templars have gotten access to no less than 4 new kits in the last 2.5 years in the form of Stormravens, Stormtalons, Centurions and Stalkers/Hunters, as well as Scout Squads proper, Land Speeder Storms, Land Raider Redeemers, etc. Black Templars are going nowehre, they've been moved from "Possibly dead and buried" to "guarenteed going nowhere"

 Ghaz wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
Are the "Last Chance" guys really getting the axe? I thought it was "Last chance to buy them before we rebase them on round like we did the Seraphim"?

Seraphon. And no, none of the Lizardmen were ever in the 'Last Chance to Buy' category and were switched over to round bases before GW introduced the category.

Well, I guess that is unfortunate, but not all that surprising, giving their "hack and burn" method to dealing with WHFB.

So they're supposed to keep kits that don't sell in production indefinitely?