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You can get a 3,000 pt army of pure FW Mechanicum for around $600, that’s pretty damn good. Cheaper than a lot of plastic armies at that level.

Hmm... what's the difference between this and this (except the price)?

I'd love for plastic Thallax to be a thing. They are probably my favourite Mechanicus unit across the board. I am sad to see them threatened. Hopefully the versions with a special weapon stay.

I wish I had enough money to get some.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dryaktylus wrote:
Hmm... what's the difference between this and this (except the price)?

Nothing it seems!

 Verviedi wrote:
Nobody’s buying Mechanicum stuff because FW won’t release Fires.

Forgeworld won’t release Fires because they hate money.

Yep, this is just bloody insane. I bought some Thallaxii when they first announced Cyraxus, and I've been waiting for rules for them ever since and I would have gladly bough more Mechanicum stuff. Apparently that is not going to happen.

To be fair, it's not like completing it and releasing it is like pressing a button. They have limited staff, and have that staff working on other projects that customers also want.

Now, maybe they should have more staff, but GW would hold those pursestrings. And I'd also find it hard to believe that supplements like FoC earn enough to justify new hires.

I think the main fault here might be with FW for overreaching and overpromising. Which are behaviors they've shown in the past. And I'm sure it's not intentional...they just get big new ideas and get excited about them, and then run into issues with the execution. Very creative people can be prone to this.

Well, if Thallax go out of print, I don't know how I will be supposed to give FW money for them if the only people still selling them are recasters.

 gorgon wrote:
To be fair, it's not like completing it and releasing it is like pressing a button. They have limited staff, and have that staff working on other projects that customers also want.

They wrote 8th edition rules for most of their existing 40K range overnight. Sure, the the rules were crap, but crap rules is better than no rules. It really cannot be that hard to make some sort of rules for the Mechanicum range.

 gorgon wrote:
To be fair, it's not like completing it and releasing it is like pressing a button. They have limited staff, and have that staff working on other projects that customers also want.

Now, maybe they should have more staff, but GW would hold those pursestrings. And I'd also find it hard to believe that supplements like FoC earn enough to justify new hires.

I think the main fault here might be with FW for overreaching and overpromising. Which are behaviors they've shown in the past. And I'm sure it's not intentional...they just get big new ideas and get excited about them, and then run into issues with the execution. Very creative people can be prone to this.

They've literally said that it was done, ready to rock, but then 8th dropped and they knew they'd have to retool the rules so it got backburnered while they did the indexes, which is fine, everyone understands that. The issue is that they then chose to devote their time to writing a completely new Imperial Armour related to the Custodes which will be released before Fires, and now they're saying it will be delayed even further(and so far as we know right now, indefinitely) because now they've decided to rewrite all the fluff as well so it's set post-Return of the Rowboat.

Fires could be done right now and up for sale. Even if the Custodes delay was somehow mandatory and unavoidable, it should still be a fairly quick job to get a print-ready book sorted out(apply the same conversion process used for the indices, tweak the result based on what they've learned about 8th since the indices, done - if they could produce 8th rules for almost their whole catalogue with a quality level of "mostly OK" in a month or so, they could produce the necessary rules for one Imperial Armour to the usual IA level of quality in the same time. They're simply choosing not to bother.

Dang, was really hoping to see that Necron Walkers rules. Feels like forever...

 Crimson wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Nobody’s buying Mechanicum stuff because FW won’t release Fires.

Forgeworld won’t release Fires because they hate money.

Yep, this is just bloody insane. I bought some Thallaxii when they first announced Cyraxus, and I've been waiting for rules for them ever since and I would have gladly bough more Mechanicum stuff. Apparently that is not going to happen.

they are my shooty electropriests.

I play my Thanatar as a neutron onager, my castellax as punchbots, my vorax as shootbots, my myrmidons as battle servitors, my thallax as electropriests and my Triaros now joins the party as a siege drill.

I bought them all years ago, and have held off on buying any more since because of all the Fires delays, but if that book ever actually comes out a Domitar, Scoria, Ursarax, and a Krios will all be mine.

 gorgon wrote:
They've literally said that it was done, ready to rock, but then 8th dropped and they knew they'd have to retool the rules so it got backburnered while they did the indexes, which is fine, everyone understands that. The issue is that they then chose to devote their time to writing a completely new Imperial Armour related to the Custodes which will be released before Fires, and now they're saying it will be delayed even further(and so far as we know right now, indefinitely) because now they've decided to rewrite all the fluff as well so it's set post-Return of the Rowboat.

Fires could be done right now and up for sale. Even if the Custodes delay was somehow mandatory and unavoidable, it should still be a fairly quick job to get a print-ready book sorted out(apply the same conversion process used for the indices, tweak the result based on what they've learned about 8th since the indices, done - if they could produce 8th rules for almost their whole catalogue with a quality level of "mostly OK" in a month or so, they could produce the necessary rules for one Imperial Armour to the usual IA level of quality in the same time. They're simply choosing not to bother.

And they'd have to re-work the fluff to include Cawl & Primaris. Custodes are selling better than GWs wildest dreams - that's why they're getting all the attention. FW/GW didn't think people cared about AdMech, but we all wrote & called them and got rules back for Secutarii. I've emailed them again today asking about Fires (and to re-think dropping Thallax) - if enough people do the same we'll soon see it :-)

A rules only release does make since, to not compete with the release of AoS 2.0

beast_gts wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
They've literally said that it was done, ready to rock, but then 8th dropped and they knew they'd have to retool the rules so it got backburnered while they did the indexes, which is fine, everyone understands that. The issue is that they then chose to devote their time to writing a completely new Imperial Armour related to the Custodes which will be released before Fires, and now they're saying it will be delayed even further(and so far as we know right now, indefinitely) because now they've decided to rewrite all the fluff as well so it's set post-Return of the Rowboat.

Fires could be done right now and up for sale. Even if the Custodes delay was somehow mandatory and unavoidable, it should still be a fairly quick job to get a print-ready book sorted out(apply the same conversion process used for the indices, tweak the result based on what they've learned about 8th since the indices, done - if they could produce 8th rules for almost their whole catalogue with a quality level of "mostly OK" in a month or so, they could produce the necessary rules for one Imperial Armour to the usual IA level of quality in the same time. They're simply choosing not to bother.

And they'd have to re-work the fluff to include Cawl & Primaris.

No they didn't, that was my point. Absolutely nothing required them to rewrite the finished and ready to print background material, they could have run the 7th>8th process on the rules and sent it to the printers. Nobody has had issues with FW publishing "historical" content in the past, whether it's a few decades or ten thousand years before the "present day", and the same would have been true for Fires.

Hell, for some of us it's made it a less appealing purchase - I don't care for Dark Imperium at all, and the fluff was the main reason I bought the FW books in the past, so if they're all going to be tied directly in to the ongoing Saturday Morning Cartoon narrative of the main GW studio fluff from now on I'll probably be giving most of them a miss, but it still would have been nice to finally have 40K rules for all this stuff.

I've held off on buying any mechanicum FW stuff for my Admech cuz I want 40k rules, now they just do this stuff and piss everyone off.

I have a bunch of FW stuff for my 40k salamanders and would gladly spend more on a bunch of robots. But I do hope that they make more stuff in plastic tho, maybe all factions troops choices?

I don't know why they didn't have an index for mechanicum like they did for almost everybody else.

The thing is fires doesn't support GW main studio narrative or kit sales.
The Imperial Armour Talons is actually going to include the first Forge world codex for sister's of silence. I for one am excited to see what Forgeworld can come upwith in terms of warlord traits and stratageums.

The change of direction was also alluded to being a GW management directive, I believe that forgeworld have lost alot of the independence it used to enjoy under Alan and are drowning under specialist games, LoR, lack of space and a bit of lack of drive for HH. Hopefully it shakes out and they find themselves again, but for now fires has been shelved for whatever reason they can't share.

What shall we do during the release period of Codex: Imperial Knights?
How about we discontinue some Knight heads!


Well played Forgeworld. Well Played.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
What shall we do during the release period of Codex: Imperial Knights?
How about we discontinue some Knight heads!


Well played Forgeworld. Well Played.

Or discontinue the ugly ones, keep the ones that sell, and make parts for the Armiger and do minus chassis to take their place in the catalogue.

Yeah, I think alot of forgeworlds ills migjt he related to the (still, and always sad) passing of Alan Bligh. For the heresy he was a driving force, and goodness knows whats its like trying to steer that ship without him.

I do hope he left enough accessible notes to give the full story of the rangdan xenocides.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
What shall we do during the release period of Codex: Imperial Knights?
How about we discontinue some Knight heads!


Well played Forgeworld. Well Played.

Or discontinue the ugly ones, keep the ones that sell, and make parts for the Armiger and do minus chassis to take their place in the catalogue.

No kidding. I wish everyone would stop crying about them discontinuing things that didn' t sell. You had a year or so to get it.

Someone asked on FB about the banner:

Forge World: Hey Benjamin!

This was a technical glitch and wasn't supposed to go online, which is why you won't have seen it on our website.
As you may know from our previous Last Chance to Buy we are performing range reviews and these kits are on the list to be put into Last Chance to Buy.
This being said, this is a range review and we are looking at this and currently, we don't have a date in mind.

That's even stranger!

'We know that we're going to drop these products, we've made the advertising saying that we're going to drop these products, but the timing of when we drop these products is totally up in the air and we have no idea because apparently we make decisions like that on a whim.'


I'd just ordered several of the heads (which I hadn't done a year ago, because, y'know, new Knight codex only released a couple of weeks ago).

Could be that they have noticed the surge in demand when things go on to last chance. So there in the really odd position of wanting to build up stock before they discontinue something.

Once they start deleting troop choices for there own forces(not marines) then that's pretty much game over for Forgeworld as an independent part of the company.

So it went somthing like this right.
Step 1 - Release Mechanicum to an enthusiastic public
Step 2 - announce that there will be no 40k rules
Step3 - watch sales drop
Step4- announce 40k rules are coming
Step5 - spike in sales followed by 4yesrs of it is coming honest
Step6 - sales are low so we're no longer releasing 40k rules
Step7 - start killing range
Step8 - ???
Step9 - profit?

 Lord Damocles wrote:
'We know that we're going to drop these products, we've made the advertising saying that we're going to drop these products, but the timing of when we drop these products is totally up in the air and we have no idea because apparently we make decisions like that on a whim.'

It does make some sense, especially if you assume that FW is operating under GW's information control policy and not allowed to announce a date even if they have one already set. They're almost certainly going to go OOP, but FW has to consider how to schedule the expected demand for them while they're on LCTB. And it's completely believable that they've been picked to be discontinued but the process of finalizing a schedule isn't complete.

 Davespil wrote:
No kidding. I wish everyone would stop crying about them discontinuing things that didn' t sell. You had a year or so to get it.

People are unhappy because it's a choice that makes zero sense. These are resin kits, a medium perfectly suited to a cast-on-demand business model. It costs FW nothing to keep the store entry and molds available, and they only have to pull the molds out and cast something if a customer has handed over cash for it. Who cares if it only sells one copy a decade, keeping the kit in stock to make that single sale costs the same as throwing away the molds and discontinuing it. But apparently GW continues to be incapable of making obvious business choices and insists on treating FW like a garage kit business where "my wife says I have to clean out the storage closet" is a likely event.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SeanDrake wrote:
Once they start deleting troop choices for there own forces(not marines) then that's pretty much game over for Forgeworld as an independent part of the company.

To be fair, the very vague banner doesn't specify which of the kits are going OOP. It could be all of the different variants, it could be "we saw that {special weapon option} has terrible rules and doesn't sell so we're discontinuing it and leaving the ones that do sell". But I agree that it doesn't make sense to cut the whole line. They're a core of the army, probably the best troops option they have, and seem to be popular on the painting side. Cutting them would just be handing free sales to the recasters.

It costs money to store a mould, it costs just as much money to store an unused mould as one used every day. To suggest it's still worth keeping a mould for one sale a decade is ludicrous.

Now I'll admit I know nothing about the sizes of these moulds or their values but to store them means either storing them on site - which fills volume of possible moulds to store on site, or it means storing them off site and renting somewhere to do so.

On site has capacity, why use that space for a once in a lifetime sale? Seems pointless to me. They have no more room to expand in to on the Nottingham site so there is a finite amount of room.

If they store a mould off site it means they need to keep tabs on it, pay for storage, dedicate time and money to bringing it back to the factory to be used. It's just not as simple as "it costs nothing" - it costs a lot. In my job we store a lot of documents off site and it costs a fortune just to pay for rental space.

Forge World clearly do not have machines sat doing nothing all day waiting for someone to order a kit, they are producing kits regularly. So scheduling in that once in a decade sale would mean resetting all manner of machines and schedules and disrupt other product availability.

That's not to say they couldn't sell it with a minimum order count - they notify you when there's enough interest and when the minimum X people pay for it that registered the interest they bring the mould out.

Or

They could have a minimum really high turnaround time (100 days+) on a kit that doesn't sell often so they could schedule it when it suits them

But that's faff. And faff costs time and money too. So it's better in terms of cost to just retire stuff that doesn't sell.

PS - i've heard it's just the non special weapons thallax squads going.

Kijamon wrote:

Now I'll admit I know nothing about the sizes of these moulds or their values...

Then why are you holding forth on the subject? Unless FW are being gratuitously wasteful with their silicone, they should be able to fit all the molds for any given product entry(a squad of infantry, a tank etc) into a shoebox for all but the big stuff. Hell I could probably store most of FW's range just by lining the walls of my one bedroom flat with bookshelves. The only real "cost" in keeping low sales volume products available is when the molds wear out and need to be replaced, which can require a good few hours of labour, but stored properly molds will last for years and years without being used, and good quality silicone properly cared for(which FW do, judging by the amount of 'orrible greasy mold release you often find on their stuff when you order) can get dozens of flawless pulls and sometimes hundreds of slightly imperfect ones after that depending on how many overhangs and intricate & rough details are on the cast, so if they're only having to cast something say five times a year it could be a decade or more before replacing the molds becomes a consideration. And doing the actual casts isn't some epic, production line-disrupting task like it is with injection molded plastics, you literally just mix a cup of resin, pour it in, stick it in a pressure chamber for a wee while and then pull the cast, most commercial casting resins have a demold time of a few hours at most.

As for "what's the point" - goodwill? Giving customers the impression that you're committed to the products you produce and aren't going to just discontinue half of them while people are only part way through buying armies from you at great expense? Maintaining the appearance that FW is a boutique entity distinct from GWHQ that exists to cater to artistic whim and veteran customers with high quality niche products? Dismissing "intangible" value is the reason GW canned the specialist games last time around, but as usual they seem to have learned the lesson only in very specific terms and continue to make the same mistakes elsewhere.

 Peregrine wrote:

People are unhappy because it's a choice that makes zero sense. These are resin kits, a medium perfectly suited to a cast-on-demand business model. It costs FW nothing to keep the store entry and molds available, and they only have to pull the molds out and cast something if a customer has handed over cash for it. Who cares if it only sells one copy a decade, keeping the kit in stock to make that single sale costs the same as throwing away the molds and discontinuing it.

Molds take up quite a bit of space, especially if you are being efficient and making gang molds (multiple casts of a piece or pieces from a single mold) and apparently space has become an issue at GW. With a set of gang molds you also end up with multiple sets of cast miniatures, not just one, so the excess sets need to be stored until someone orders another one.

T

timd wrote:
Molds take up quite a bit of space, especially if you are being efficient and making gang molds (multiple casts of a piece or pieces from a single mold) and apparently space has become an issue at GW. With a set of gang molds you also end up with multiple sets of cast miniatures, not just one, so the excess sets need to be stored until someone orders another one.

Space is cheap. The cost of the warehouse space required to store all of FW's molds is a rounding error in GW's overall budget. This is what I mean about treating FW like one guy running a garage kit business. You expect that kind of operation to discontinue stuff because they run out of space in the garage and can't afford $100/month to put their spare parts in a storage unit, you don't expect it from a company with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Kijamon wrote:

Now I'll admit I know nothing about the sizes of these moulds or their values...

Then why are you holding forth on the subject? Unless FW are being gratuitously wasteful with their silicone, they should be able to fit all the molds for any given product entry(a squad of infantry, a tank etc) into a shoebox for all but the big stuff. Hell I could probably store most of FW's range just by lining the walls of my one bedroom flat with bookshelves. The only real "cost" in keeping low sales volume products available is when the molds wear out and need to be replaced, which can require a good few hours of labour, but stored properly molds will last for years and years without being used, and good quality silicone properly cared for(which FW do, judging by the amount of 'orrible greasy mold release you often find on their stuff when you order) can get dozens of flawless pulls and sometimes hundreds of slightly imperfect ones after that depending on how many overhangs and intricate & rough details are on the cast, so if they're only having to cast something say five times a year it could be a decade or more before replacing the molds becomes a consideration. And doing the actual casts isn't some epic, production line-disrupting task like it is with injection molded plastics, you literally just mix a cup of resin, pour it in, stick it in a pressure chamber for a wee while and then pull the cast, most commercial casting resins have a demold time of a few hours at most.

As for "what's the point" - goodwill? Giving customers the impression that you're committed to the products you produce and aren't going to just discontinue half of them while people are only part way through buying armies from you at great expense? Maintaining the appearance that FW is a boutique entity distinct from GWHQ that exists to cater to artistic whim and veteran customers with high quality niche products? Dismissing "intangible" value is the reason GW canned the specialist games last time around, but as usual they seem to have learned the lesson only in very specific terms and continue to make the same mistakes elsewhere.

Worktime of employer also costs money. Along with storage.

But sure keep on living world where company pays to sell stuff at loss just for fun if you want.

tneva82 wrote:
Worktime of employer also costs money. Along with storage.

Storage is so cheap that it isn't worth considering, and labor costs are already included in the cost of the kit. Remember, you still have to store the molds for all of the in-production stuff, so the additional labor costs of keeping everything are negligible things like the employee doing the casting having to spending 10 seconds more to pull a set of molds off a shelf a few steps farther down the row in the warehouse.

But sure keep on living world where company pays to sell stuff at loss just for fun if you want.

Lots of companies sell stuff at a loss, because the net effect on their profit is positive. For example, grocery stores will take a loss on certain products just to get you in the door because they know that while you're there you'll pick up all of your other needs and many of those have a much higher profit margin. Or console manufacturers will eat a major loss on every console sold because profit matters much less than getting market share and driving sales of the games people buy to play on that console. Even if you assume that FW takes a loss occasionally (probably rarely, given that cast-on-demand as a business model only has a cost when it also has a sale) the benefits of having a more diverse model range may be worth it. For example, the commonly cited argument of "FW just does Imperial stuff, ban it" hurts FW's sales of Imperial kits because few people want to buy models they can't use. Eating a loss on every kit to keep some DE/ork/etc stuff in production undermines the anti-FW argument and has the side effect of increasing overall sales on top of whatever revenue comes in from the xenos kits.