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Alas, I called my FLGS to see if my pre-order was in, and was informed they had not received enough to fulfil the Shadow War preorders. So, now I'm one of the rest of the grumpy kids, sad because I'm missing out.

At the very least, I'm hoping GW takes from this just how badly pent up 40k fans are for a skirmish size game. I didn't even realize I wanted such a thing, but I tried to buy two, so I guess I did.

It's worth mentioning, as appealing as this box set was, have you noticed how unappealing the thought of buying the terrain separately and getting the rules from an Ebook is? I'm not sure why, but doing that, versus the $130 box set, just feels like a let down. I think on some level, I just want Shadow War to be a forever thing, to lure in new players, even though in my own life I really don't need marine scouts or Orks...

I'm surprised they don't do a series of bundle deals on line with an ebook rules, the terrain combo and a choice of opposing kill teams to reap the potential lost sales

I'm surprised they haven't done a variant on that as a starter bundle for 40K for years (1 HQ, 1 Troop, 1 other thing plus Codex for a bundled discount) but clearly they've got some reason not to, or haven't thought of it.

if they sell out they'll do a second run of the set. thats how these things work. I suspect GW may be, pleasently suprised, with the sales figures here

And how happy would they be when they sell more and more kits from all kind of ranges well outside the usual three months window because said kits suddenly get a new game ro be played in? This is not SGs where they have to offer Necro gangs, no, every added team list for a game that uses the regular model line would generate new sales for a moderate amount of effort in the form of supporting it instead of fire and forget. Still not as much as a new release or codex would generate, sure, but those are easily additional sales for everyone not wanting to start whole new army X or plays an army that never gets a codex update. Buying a single box for a team is just so easy to scratch a small itch.

But they need a supported and available game for such spontaneous purchases. 40k isn't that game anymore. SW won't be, it seems.

 davou wrote:
Missed sales when you made all the money that you set out to make is much healthier for a company than unsold product sitting on shelves because you decided to make tons of it 'just in case'.

Once again, this is not necessarily true. It relies on the assumption that the cost of storing, recycling or disposing of leftover copies would exceed the extra revenue gained from however many more they could have sold. It's not at all as simple as 'not selling all of them is bad'.

It also overlooks the knock-on effect of disappointed customers taking their hobby dollars elsewhere as a result of not being able to buy this release.

BrianDavion wrote:
if they sell out they'll do a second run of the set. thats how these things work.

Not if you rely on third parties to produce components for you. Then your second run is at the largesse of those third parties, when they can accommodate your second run, and whether that timeframe makes sense..

If you're making electronics and are updating your products once a year, this isn't too much of a big deal, but if your business model is hyping up the latest thing while moving on the next week/month, a four month delay in restock can make it effectively irrelevant.

 Azreal13 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
if they sell out they'll do a second run of the set. thats how these things work.

Not if you rely on third parties to produce components for you. Then your second run is at the largesse of those third parties, when they can accommodate your second run, and whether that timeframe makes sense..

If you're making electronics and are updating your products once a year, this isn't too much of a big deal, but if your business model is hyping up the latest thing while moving on the next week/month, a four month delay in restock can make it effectively irrelevant.

It could take 4 months just to get a spot, then 2 months to ship the components from China back to GW. Then you got the boat ride for them to get to America for us across the pound.

If that be the case, there might have been an issue with the production itself.

Personally, I see this as an honest !@#$ up. Someone in the line missed communication on the production issue, and there is more then likely an additional issue that came up at the 9th hour that wasn't known.

The local store that I got mine from tells me that the scenery is coming out next week. That means that the current boxed set is going to be refilled when the site says - "Temporarily out of stock."


Feth me, I never thought I would ever defend GW, but I have seen this issue come up first hand in a couple of real world examples. One was, for someone I worked for- about training manuals. The printer was supposed to have cranked out 100, but internally, and not know to us, there was a 50 book limit for printing. We had to go back and revamp the order and got the other 100, after picking up the 50 initial manuals after putting in two more orders. ( And the printer was right next door... 3 buildings down.) We didn't find out about the limit until after the initial order.

Another one is in Project Management, Here is a textbook case of one of those issues that needs to be addressed in a project by the developers. It happens more then you think, every day- in a lot of industries.
Another question not brought up is going to be about different colors for the templates.... (Red? How about other colors,,,are they going to be available and for sale individually in sets?)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lockark wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
if they sell out they'll do a second run of the set. thats how these things work.

Not if you rely on third parties to produce components for you. Then your second run is at the largesse of those third parties, when they can accommodate your second run, and whether that timeframe makes sense..

If you're making electronics and are updating your products once a year, this isn't too much of a big deal, but if your business model is hyping up the latest thing while moving on the next week/month, a four month delay in restock can make it effectively irrelevant.

It could take 4 months just to get a spot, then 2 months to ship the components from China back to GW. Then you got the boat ride for them to get to America for us across the pound.

You beat me to it.

I think it may be a case of the 8th edition release in a few months killing the chance of a full reprint. They can get the digital rules up next week, but if it takes a few months to get a full reprint, then you're edging into the 8th edition release, and GW can't have a fully separate, stand alone game competing with their flagship product.

It sucks, but if you ignore the terrain aspect of the box set, it's still a super low buy in for a game. You're looking at hopefully a $20-30 digital rulebook, free faction rules, and pretty much $30-50 for a faction, depending on what faction you pick. Obviously you need lots of terrain for this game, but presumably people will already have this, or can play at their local store otherwise.

This is the cheapest buy in to 40k available in decades and has tried and tested rules that still hold up, over 20 years after their initial release. For all the negatives about availability, let's keep in mind 2-3 years ago no one would have imagined you could get into a GW game for that price point.

I don't know why people its so surprised that GW failed to do proper market research for this.

They haven't done it in 20 years, they are still learning how to do it

 Grot 6 wrote:
If that be the case, there might have been an issue with the production its

In which case you notify your customers that there was a production issue that limited the number of copies initially available, but that more stock is coming in however long it's going to take.

The fact that that response from GW instead was 'Holy crap, people actualy wanted to buy this thing that they've been asking us for, for the last 15 years! Who knew? '

Which suggests that, no, it wasn't a production issue. They're simply completely out of touch with their customer base.

People say a lot of things, doesn't mean they follow through.

For example, "Bring back the Squats!" Welp, GW did that. How well are the selling?

"Plastic Sisters of Battle!!!" Yeah, that's gonna sell so good...

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
People say a lot of things, doesn't mean they follow through.

For example, "Bring back the Squats!" Welp, GW did that. How well are the selling?

"Plastic Sisters of Battle!!!" Yeah, that's gonna sell so good...

When did GW bring back the squats? In "Made for order" format?

I think it is rather odd how we still have people saying that this debacle is some sort of ideal situation and a triumph of risk management.

This was a cluster feth right from the get go. When you sell out worldwide on something that you never advertised as limited (and in fact, went out of your way to make sure everyone saw it as the next big thing), and don't even have a plan in place to release the book digitally until people are screaming for answers, and stores can't even fulfil their orders 'cause no one told them it was limited, then you've done something wrong.

When the biggest stores in the country have used up over half their allotment 5 minutes after opening, something is wrong.

Some of you are making this out to be some sort of calculated move, or something that any business would be proud of. Are you insane? Misleading your stockists (let alone your own retail stores) and engendering anger in your customer base that missed out (because they never thought it'd be limited), is not something a company strives for.

I'm happy to accept that the popularity of this game took them all by surprise - a reoccurring theme in recent months with GW; get it together folks! - but to make it so limited that most people don't get it? That's mind-boggling.

But this was GW's "master plan", and it is something that they should do more of/should be proud of.. get outta town. That's nonsense.

In other news, the place I originally ordered it from is going to be able to complete 70% of their pre-orders. Whether that includes my copy or not I do not know.

 Galas wrote:
When did GW bring back the squats? In "Made for order" format?

He's talking about the sky pirate Dwarfs... sorry, Duardin™.

Of course they're not out yet, so saying "And how well are they selling" is quite disingenuous (typical trait of ol' DD there). And they're not Squats either, so it's a false comparison and even more disingenuity from Johnboy.

Oh, ok, thanks! I tought that I missed some Squat re-release from GW!

And about the Kharadron Overlords... I have seen a good amount of "hype" about them. I expect them to sell well, I think they are from a desing and thematical standpoint the best 100% AoS product line. Very good theme and I think, well executed.

 Galas wrote:
Oh, ok, thanks! I tought that I missed some Squat re-release from GW!

And about the Kharadron Overlords... I have seen a good amount of "hype" about them. I expect them to sell well, I think they are from a desing and thematical standpoint the best 100% AoS product line. Very good theme and I think, well executed.

Here's hoping they ship enough to meet demand. I would consider myself a bit of a GW apologist but there is no question that this has been a badly bungled release and GW's communication which has been much better in recent times, has been very poor on this occasion.
If they had simply said from the start that this was a limited bundle with a rule book coming later, a lot of the problems could have been avoided.
I am sure that GW will do more limited boxed games in the future, but they need to communicate clearly about the nature of the product and have provisions in place if a product proves unusually popular.

I personally think that the "Limited run" was something decided in the last moment, like the drop in cost. I don't know why they did that, because as we have seen, was a absurd movement and a total failure.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
"Plastic Sisters of Battle!!!" Yeah, that's gonna sell so good...

The Dark Eldar and Necron plastic ranges would like to disagree with you.

Are the rules going to be available separately? I'd like to get a 40K scene going in my club, and a squad level skirmish game like Kill Team is the perfect way to do it. Lots of us have old 40K armies but haven't played in several editions. I play/used to play Raven Guard Space Marines, and I have an old Gaunt's Ghosts collection that I didn't know what to do with until now, it would be perfect for Kill Team. And I'd probably expand on them with Victoria Miniatures' Rangers.

None of us play Orcs, and I have all the Scout infantry I could ever desire (~25, being a Raven Guard player), and we're making our own terrain, so I'm not interested in getting a £90 box set just for the rules. But I would buy a complete, separate rulebook in a heartbeat. I'd probably start a Skitarii Kill Team too.

They'll presumably be in the electronic version of the rulebook which GW will gak out at some point in the near future.

Don't expect a free lunch.

 Zethnar wrote:
They'll presumably be in the electronic version of the rulebook which GW will gak out at some point in the near future.

Don't expect a free lunch.

Not asking for one. I'd happily buy a hardback rulebook.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Are the rules going to be available separately? I'd like to get a 40K scene going in my club, and a squad level skirmish game like Kill Team is the perfect way to do it. Lots of us have old 40K armies but haven't played in several editions. I play/used to play Raven Guard Space Marines, and I have an old Gaunt's Ghosts collection that I didn't know what to do with until now, it would be perfect for Kill Team. And I'd probably expand on them with Victoria Miniatures' Rangers.

None of us play Orcs, and I have all the Scout infantry I could ever desire (~25, being a Raven Guard player), and we're making our own terrain, so I'm not interested in getting a £90 box set just for the rules. But I would buy a complete, separate rulebook in a heartbeat. I'd probably start a Skitarii Kill Team too.

No definitive release date, but some people have said digital rules available as soon as next week.

 insaniak wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
If that be the case, there might have been an issue with the production its

In which case you notify your customers that there was a production issue that limited the number of copies initially available, but that more stock is coming in however long it's going to take.

The fact that that response from GW instead was 'Holy crap, people actualy wanted to buy this thing that they've been asking us for, for the last 15 years! Who knew? '

Which suggests that, no, it wasn't a production issue. They're simply completely out of touch with their customer base.

You forgot to add this-
Personally, I see this as an honest !@#$ up. Someone in the line missed communication on the production issue, and there is more then likely an additional issue that came up at the 9th hour that wasn't known.

The local store that I got mine from tells me that the scenery is coming out next week. That means that the current boxed set is going to be refilled when the site says - "Temporarily out of stock." Of course, he's saying he's getting at least 2 sets of each, and I of course, ( Being the guy that wanted 2 boxed sets,) told him to drop a few off the truck for me.

Out of touch with not only their fan base, but those same cats that sold this pitch at GAMA, the internal department heads, and of course the online store.

In the grand scheme, they are out of touch, and that illustrious "someones" !@#$ing head needs to roll over this million dollar cock-up.

WE were ( The local game scene) notified about the game 3 weeks beforehand that this was going to be an ongoing product line, from the vary same stockiest. Imagine the crow he was eating Last week and yesterday, when we both found out, almost together that what was sold 3-4 weeks ago was not in fact, going into the plan.

He's not having a laugh when he has got no less then 50 people on deck waiting for the next run, only to find out the little on line tidbit, that was never even in the cards, 3-4 weeks ago. The other store damn near had a riot over it.

I do agree with you, though- Someone over in GW needs to hit the bricks over this one.

FLGS got enough to cover pre orders, but none for the shelf. So you were SOL if you didn't place a preorder. Standing in line would not have helped this morning there....I got my copy, but feel a little guilty, as I did not want it that bad. But I am not one of those eBay scalpers. Nothing in this set has any real rarity, but the hard copy of the rules, apparently. Everything else can be had now, or shortly.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Are the rules going to be available separately? I'd like to get a 40K scene going in my club, and a squad level skirmish game like Kill Team is the perfect way to do it. Lots of us have old 40K armies but haven't played in several editions. I play/used to play Raven Guard Space Marines, and I have an old Gaunt's Ghosts collection that I didn't know what to do with until now, it would be perfect for Kill Team. And I'd probably expand on them with Victoria Miniatures' Rangers.

None of us play Orcs, and I have all the Scout infantry I could ever desire (~25, being a Raven Guard player), and we're making our own terrain, so I'm not interested in getting a £90 box set just for the rules. But I would buy a complete, separate rulebook in a heartbeat. I'd probably start a Skitarii Kill Team too.

THIS game can work with any of the figures. Your going to have to cut and paste them into a workable team, and you might want to keep notes into the tone of the teams you use, for when we need to start building a community section for team development. I have Vic's figures as well. going to put together the Penial Squad I have and see how it goes with a development model for my contribution. I also want to look into getting a Gaunt ghosts team, and Last Chancers team, and a regular straight leg Cadian team. Inquisitorial team- not even a conversation.

In fact I'm going to dig out my Gaunts Gjosts miniatures right now, they're shoved to the back of my computer desk behind all my paints and miniature backlog, underneath the monitor gathering dust.

What would people see as a "fair price" for the rules and tokens? These are the only unique items, no?

My local store doesn't even know if we got any or not, his rep delayed shipment to try to force the store to by troop kits to go with shadow war.

Ehldar wrote:
What would people see as a "fair price" for the rules and tokens? These are the only unique items, no?

Unless you count the red templates, yes. As for fair price - whatever the market will bear. This is another shining example of GW stumbling into an alliance with scalpers. I think the rulebook should be sold by GW in softcover for 25 USD. Seems to be going on ebay for as much as 100 USD. Just the reference card sold for 25 USD.