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The Chaos Marine Helbrute kit is now Direct - what could be the reason for this? Other than low sales, that is.

Cool kit but fugly and un competitive so likely poor sales I know my local store is always complaining of not enough shelf space

What other reasons would there need to be "other than low sales". After all, these are retail stores so that's the first consideration.

Mostly all dreadnoughts are bad (and have been) so I'm more amazed that all of them aren't web exclusives.

Its also in the chaos start collecting set, making the single sell even lower I guess.

I imagine it's a low seller and with the new releases that seem to come each week they don't want them taking up shelf space in the GW stores. I know my local GW is full to bursting with stock, and they don't even put a lot of each thing out on the store floor.

If the rumor of future CSM releases with the next campaign are true it's likely just the anticipated need for shelf space.

Need to clear shelf space for Primaris Deathwatch.

Yup, because zero kits will take that much space, eh?

They don't have the 'arrow' but I learned three weeks ago that the cultists are now webstore exclusive too. Same thing with the Seekers and Chariots.

Dunno if they're gonna start something bad or not this summer but I'm glad I got the SC!s I need. You guys should probably do the same as well.

This is just GW doing what they do. Kit gets released and is stocked everywhere, reaches a certain age and is withdrawn to direct only to allow space for new releases.

TBH with the small premises they tend towards, in the U.K. at least, there needs to be a policy like this in place, or they'll end up like my old FLGS where there's a cupboard of stock that's inaccessible because there's piles of stock in front of the door, and nobody's seen the toilet for three years because of all the bottles of RC car fuel!

But isn't there a general rule that specific items going OOS or direct don't justify a separate N+R thread?

Neronoxx wrote:
The Chaos Marine Helbrute kit is now Direct - what could be the reason for this? Other than low sales, that is.

AFAIK The Helbrute kit went Direct Only in September 2017, at least in Europe.

Beware of the GW website, it's absolutely not up to date with the current state of web exclusive models.

No great loss, IMO.

Retailers: "You have a lot of SKU creep. How do I know what to stock"

GW: "We are totally fixing that for you. We stopped stores from being able to sell about a quarter of our inventory."

Retailers: "Wait, what?"

GW: "26% now"

Retailers: <shuts up>

Low sales. That's it.

My local GW store is tiny. They have very limited shelf space. They have to make space for start collecting stuff for 40k and AoS, along with the best sellers of each faction. Some factions, like Genestealer Cults, aren't even in the store because nobody locally buys them or asks about them.

The Helbrute is just that. Not enough store sales. Doesn't mean that other stores, like other flgs's won't have it, since they will happily sit on GW stock for a lot longer than a typical GW store will.

Sadly what you can buy in your LGS is dwindling significantly and a lot of core army choices are direct only. I don't think it's possible to complete an army anymore without having to use GW's webstore.

Go to GW's page and filter by "Webstore Exclusives" and be shocked and amazed at what is direct only.

Imperial Knights
Land Raider
Whirlwind
SM Captain
Chapter Upgrade Packs
Baneblade
Basilisk
Taurox
Canifex
Tyranid Warriors
Exocrine
Hive Guard
Raveners
Autarch
Fireprism
Falcon
Vyper
Windriders (aka Eldar Jetbikes)
Reavers (aka Dark Eldat Jetbikes)
Triarch Stalker
Ghost Ark
Necron Destroyers
Nephilim Jetfighter
Soulgrinder
Chaos Predator
Chaos Vindicator
Hellbrute
Deff Dread
And many many many more...

It's impressive, but this is the direct symptom of GW expanding its range to include more miniatures and factions. There's only so much shelf space that a game store can have. Webstore Exclusive is a simple, though probably inaccurate, way to measure how well something is selling.

For example, I'm not surprised to see Land Raiders, Soulgrinders, Vindicators, Autarchs, or even Taurox on that list. They're just not very popular. Things like Imperial Knights and Baneblades are too big for a beginner to pick up on a whim, and an army can only have so many of them before they're saturated for points.

Compare those kits to things like the regular Tactical Marine kit, any of the Start Collecting boxes, the must-haves like Hive Tyrants and Dark Reapers, and you'll start to see a pattern in what sells well enough to keep on the shelves matches up with what does well in the game, or what is a more popular choice to fill out points.

Basilisk has been "Direct Only" for 3 editions now.
The Imperial Knight that is "Direct Only" is the original release(the Paladin and Errant).

While you're right that there's a ton of stuff that is basically critical and is Direct Only, a decent amount of the stuff that is Direct Only has other ways to get it.

FLGS can buy webstore only stuff but the discount for them is smaller and the minimun amount of boxes they have to buy is higher. So if you want webstore exclusive stuff you should try to speak with people around your FLGS, if they want webstore exclusive stuff too, and make a big buy to your FLGS.

I ordered 2 from my LGS and it took a month for them to get them. Of course as soon as I'm done building and converting them GW will come out with a bigger better one.

God I hope they don't come out with new ones already....

As GW continues to pump out dozens of new kits every year, eventually some of these kits will be discontinued. It's kind of a scary thought to me...but GW seems to be more about selling new things, not old stuff.

They must be cutting down on storage space as a lot of retailers at least in the UK such as Wayland games and element games seem to be struggling to get their hands on any large quantities of stock, especially while the GW webstore is also out of stock. I tried to order two boxes of Scourges from Wayland games and they emailed me apologising that they weren't sure how long it would be until they had the items so I cancelled my order and went to eBay, another store on their said they didn't know when they would have stock especially while the kit was out of stock for GW. I guess they're saving money but it also means they're strangling the retailers.

Maybe they'll change the name back to Chaos Dreadnought. Instead of being stupid.

Retailers can still order these, but the trade discount is like 10% lower than for the regular stuff. And, unless you are fine with paying full price, you can always get these shipped to your official GW store for free, so no biggie

GW shops can only hold so much. They only keep in stock the new releases and top sellers.

I was looking for Tzeentch Skyfires in my local the other day only to find they had gone webshop only.

I suspect that their webshop 'picking' warehouse and their retailer/distributor warehouse are two separate locations. If sales are particularly low or part of a financially more attractive option, they get removed from the retailer/distributor warehouse, making room for new and relevant products.

I saw a lot of Necrons products as not available through retail, that changes with the release of the Codex...