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I was looking into getting Escalation as a present to myself and it's a shame to see it's out of stock everywhere.

Is this something GW dropped the ball on or was this the expected run time for the expansion sets of BSF? I'm feeling sad I didn't jump on these sets sooner.

Well they said that Ascension would be the last expansion for BSF. They never said how quickly BSF would vanish after that though.

Yup, it's the speed they've disappeared I'm disappointed in. I was expecting their lifespan on the shelves to be a tad longer in all honesty, even when Ascension was the last set.

It's a tough one especially as Ascension needs Escalation to be playable if I'm reading the previous page correctly.

Contacted GW customer services and they are trying to reprint the base game ready this side of Christmas but have no specific date. I would assume that would include Escalation as well, as its a requirement for Ascension and probably a 2020 annual if one appears.

Just a thought; Wrath of the Daemon Kin seems to have units from Escalation but the annual doesn't specifiy Escalation as a requirement. Any confirmation on this?

They're still printing BSF articles in WD (there was one in the September issue), so if we're lucky there's another annual on the way.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
Yup, it's the speed they've disappeared I'm disappointed in. I was expecting their lifespan on the shelves to be a tad longer in all honesty, even when Ascension was the last set.

You're 100% right there. I don't think anyone expected it to vanish as quickly as it did.

I know that, at the time, I said that Ascension would probably be the hardest expansion to get a hold of given that it's the last of the line and therefore would receive no reprints (see how hard it is to get the last Black Crusade splat book, or the last Dark Heresy splat book), but no where in my imagination did I expect to see people selling Traitor Command and things like that on eBay for stupid prices because of how quickly everyone snapped up the last few copies.

My copy of BSF came with an Initiative deck that's in German for some reason, and GW said they couldn't replace it because they have nothing to replace it with. Thankfully it's just the Initiative deck, which is mostly picture driven. If it had been any other component I might not have much luck playing the game.

I'm also lucky that during May/June/July the place I usually get GW stuff from was having raffles for the Catachan Colonel, so for the 3 months the comp was active I bought all the BSF expansions (which I'd held off on getting) as they were an easy way to get entries into the raffle. If I'd waited even two months after that I wouldn't've been able to get them.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
I was looking into getting Escalation as a present to myself and it's a shame to see it's out of stock everywhere.

Is this something GW dropped the ball on or was this the expected run time for the expansion sets of BSF? I'm feeling sad I didn't jump on these sets sooner.

It's just my gut feeling, and if there was any hard evidence anywhere proving or disproving it I'd love to see it, but I think the price of the expansions drove away alot of people who might have been interested and pretty quickly resulted in each production run for each expansions being smaller than the one before it.

But GW being GW had already decided the price point for the expansions, and nothing was going to change it.

It's not really just BSF though, GW is having trouble keeping a lot of things in stock due to the pandemic. I don't imagine it was their intent to have things disappear from shelves so quickly.

 Zethnar wrote:
It's not really just BSF though, GW is having trouble keeping a lot of things in stock due to the pandemic. I don't imagine it was their intent to have things disappear from shelves so quickly.

This isn't a stock thing though. This is the game going out of production as its life cycle is over.

Wasn't this obvious right from the start that it would end up the same way Warhammer Quest ended? You either buy everything as soon as it comes out or fish ebay later.

 CragHack wrote:
Wasn't this obvious right from the start that it would end up the same way Warhammer Quest ended? You either buy everything as soon as it comes out or fish ebay later.

I think its a combination of the speed and the lack of a heads-up from GW when the stock is getting near empty. Considering that I'm sure a few of those kits have come in and out of stock. Plus some of the newer kits have sold out far faster than some of the older ones. Basically its a very random situation and its very hard to guess at what you can get when. Plus for those of us not buying into the game but wanting the models there's the hope that some might get their own pack release or its just hard to justify a model on its own when we get bombarded with regular army models we also want.

I bought the Escalation box recently just to get the cool cultist models for my Black Legion army (I do play BSF occasionally, but I never bothered with the other expansions). Looks like I got one of the very last copies out there. I'm debating selling the rest of the box on eBay, since people who just want to play the game can easily replace the cultists with other models.

At this point, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out the person at GW who decides the size of production runs also had a profitable little sideline as an eBay scalper.

Not making a prediction / claim of fact, just that I would not be surprised.

 Duskweaver wrote:
At this point, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out the person at GW who decides the size of production runs also had a profitable little sideline as an eBay scalper.

Not making a prediction / claim of fact, just that I would not be surprised.

It is unlikely to be a single person who makes decisions on production run sizes.

I bought into it over lockdown with a couple of the expansions. However I've never actually got to play it with our group so don't know if the others would have been "worth" buying.

I guess now I'll never know. Reprinting the ones I don't have (Ambull, Commisar, Zoat) doesn't seem likely, and I'm not paying inflated eBay prices.

 Duskweaver wrote:

At this point, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out the person at GW who decides the size of production runs also had a profitable little sideline as an eBay scalper.

With a company as profit-driven as Games Workshop, that would be a fantastic way of putting one's nuts on the chopping block.

Seen it happen in retail a few times and has always resulted in immediate dismissal. In all cases it been by individuals who were already earning a nice income and were too greedy to notice those who were taking notes...

Carlovonsexron wrote:

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
I was looking into getting Escalation as a present to myself and it's a shame to see it's out of stock everywhere.

Is this something GW dropped the ball on or was this the expected run time for the expansion sets of BSF? I'm feeling sad I didn't jump on these sets sooner.

It's just my gut feeling, and if there was any hard evidence anywhere proving or disproving it I'd love to see it, but I think the price of the expansions drove away alot of people who might have been interested and pretty quickly resulted in each production run for each expansions being smaller than the one before it.

But GW being GW had already decided the price point for the expansions, and nothing was going to change it.

I feel like your probably almost right. I think the cost of the expansions was high enough that they went from an immediate "buy now" to "I want that but I'll wait until I'm ready to play it" - the demand still seems to be there based on Ebay prices, but I think they didn't sell that well in the initial rush which made GW think the demand was not there.

The core game is now back in stock on the GW site, and hopefully some of the expansions to follow. With a bit of luck, Wayland will be restocked shortly...

For those who have Ascension, what exactly does it require from Escalation? If its components that are easily substituted, I might pick it up while its still available.

As far as I can tell the Wrath of the Daemonkin section of the 2019 annual only requires the Firebrand, cultists and only three tiles from Escalation. Doesn't seem to be a problem there...

I just need that accursed card pack. And probably this year’s annual (assuming there is one)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I just need that accursed card pack. And probably this year’s annual (assuming there is one)

I reckon they will do a new annual, but this time round include character cards like the Solitaire, Astroth and the Ogryn bothers. That popped up as a main critisim on the youtube channels so it might make them reconsider...

With no new WHQ game in sight, its a simple product they can whip together.

True.

I mean. I’ve got all the relevant WD issues. But I’d strongly prefer a fresh Annual. Makes it easierer.

Must say, I haven't got the actual game yet but love flicking through the annual. Very well presented and the only things I would have added are the character cards and the rules for running Kill Team games within the fortress. Glad I picked up the 2018 december issue as I put the Traitor's Fane card in the Ambull box for safe keeping...