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 nathan2004 wrote:
I'm hoping high elves and Warriors are next...makes sense quintessential good versus evil plus some of their better sellers. And Valrak has a pretty good track record I believe

Now, now. Don't say that. Just because they're elves doesn't automatically make them evil.

I wouldn't mind seeing Warriors of Chaos sooner than later, if only to confirm if we can expect Forsaken to return. I'd buy a box of them.

Valrak and other sources point to WoC after Dwarfs.

I strongly believe so.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
GW sailed unscathed right through the 2008+ crisis too.

Cool dudes with chainsaw swords make us happy and maybe when folks can't afford a 5k cruise, you can make a killing on 50$ boxes of chainsaw swords.

Ahh, but that hit just after GW had massively restructured after LOTR ended, and had done so with only modest borrowing - which if very hazy memory serves was to pay a dividend,

Staff cuts, non-profitable stores closed or relocated or restaffed, no doubt lots of other changes behind the scenes such as studio reorganisation etc.

It’s another example of GW’s bizarre good luck. Sure, it’s married to business sense, but luck has been a major part of its success over the decades. The main business sense was not borrowing to expand, but doing it from cash on hand. That they moved largely unopposed into British High Streets helped, and explains why we just don’t have the FLGS culture of the US hobby scene. And that bedrock has ensured a constant online presence, even from the days of Warseer and whatever IRC came before that.

I mean, another company would be able to try GW’s “write the theme tune, sing the theme tune” approach of wholly owned stores selling sole branded products, sure. But unlike GW when it was getting going, they’re competing with GW. Not just for customers, but overall quality of products. No that’s not saying GW are the best quality across the board - but it’s still the benchmark. And so to compete, you need to be some element or combination of a) cheaper b) higher quality c) greater range.

Proper bonkers just how jammy GW have been.

A lot of the early GW stores were opened really close to independant gaming stores which often resulted in them closing

at that point GW stores weren't one brand shops but sold a much wider range both of licenced stuff like CoC, Stormbringer, AD&D, Runequest, Paranoia and even stuff made by other manufacturers

they slowly dropped the other manufactures lines and then canned all the licenced stuff they had left (and even put it on sale to get rid of it, I even have some of the CoC and other stuff from that final cull in the Edinburgh store) Edit: By then a couple of other gaming stores had closed, one near the kings theatre (Mutant Chronicles focused so probably down to that crashing) and one near the Grayfriars Bobby statue about 5 mins walk from GW. I think the third independant just down the road from the GW on the Royal Mile (Mac's Models) was still going at that point)

Also they went through a huge process of moving stores to other locations off the UK high street to spaces with considerably cheaper rent which made a huge difference.

And was probably essential - the main highstreets are so insanely overpriced now to operate on a good many are ghost towns* where only food outlets and what seems like an ever revolving number of new clothing/shoe stores seem to open up on

To say nothing of the crippling taxes that government set which further adds to the question of why open a highstreet store when all its going to to today is burn your money when you can open an etsy/ebay store from home.


*I'm not even sure how the rents work and part of me wonders if we've not got a lot of "investors" sitting on properties where they either don't care to receive a rent or where its some tax dodge that if they have unrented properties they can write off tax so they only want them occupied at high rates.

Rent, Business Rates, uncapped power rates, water rates, staffing costs, insurance costs (including public liability).

And unlike GW Stores, a FLGS has to, y’know, buy in its own stock. Which for getting open in the first place is a significant cash investment, and risk that you’ve bought in what’s going to sell in your local area.

GW also benefit from a centralised recruitment process. They know the personalities that’ll fit the plan and model, and recruit accordingly.

Not only that but they can also move new staff around to train them up to a good standard as well.

But yeah I recall when Indominius was selling decently but some stores were having to basically shift it at-cost just to get the money invested back to buy other things that would fast sell. There's a reason a LOT of hobbyshops in this market live and breath cardgames because its just such a fast turnover of cash.

Gone are the days when stores could more easily buy huge inventories and have stuff shelf-sit until it was needed. These days they can't afford to have too much money tied up in unsold stock.


It doesn't help that a lot of games have huge inventories of models and items. Which is another boon for GW - they can stock 1 product line really well. Every other store wants to do the GW stuff AND everything else and often in very tiny footprints of storesize. I've been in some in the UK when Warmachine was at the height of 2nd edition and they had tiny amounts on the shelf squashed in next to boardgames and other stuff.


There are a few big names - Firestorm seem to be going from strength to strength, Wayland and few others

My FLGS, Chaos Cards (directly opposite the pub I’m currently in for a gig) carries some TTWG stuff, but even their GW stuff is pretty limited. They’re mostly TCG and Board Games.

Decent sized store though, with four permanent 6x4 gaming boards I’ll be co-opting for a Necromunda campaign in due course.

I think the reason people look for paired releases is because that's what GW seems to be doing. The game launch pairing of TK & Brets was pretty explicit: the Bret's Arcane Journal has a specific scenario pairing up TK with Bret Exiles. The next 2 armies are O&G & Dwarfs, another logical pairing. So, while there is no guarantee that GW will follow this process, it certainly looks like a trend.

Damon.

But o&g and dwarves aren't paired. O&g came out 3+ months ago and dwarves still aren't out. Those are clearly independent releases at that point.

Perhaps not paired in the same sense as Brets & TK but paired as in "these are logical matched opponents," particularly from a story standpoint. Having the expectation of GW launching two armies simultaneously, while attractive, is pretty far-fetched & unrealistic. But there is, so far, a pretty logical pattern to the releases. It remains to be seen what the two next releases will actually be, but this idea has traction based on the pairing of these armies so far.

Damon.

with 3+ months between releases there are no pairs, or something like "logical opponents"

Goblins and Dwarfs match, but the time between them is the same as between Brets and Orcs and will be the same as Dwarfs and the next one

Greenskin and Dwarfs are a paired release the same way as Dwarfs and Chaos will be (if Chaos is the next one) with a 3 month wait between.

By now there is no logical pattern just because 1/2 half out of 3 release matches the upcoming release
not even the stories are connected in a way as it would be expected with a release that way

I suppose we won't even see a back and forth between factions from the Forces of Fantasy and the Ravening Hordes, since the former has one faction more, but the first army after launch was one from Ravening Hordes.

GW launched with two factions, which is the bare minimum to play a game that isn't a Space Marine civil war, and folks still extrapolate that this means armies will always come in pairs.

And lets face it, in the Wargaming market Space Marines are about the only army you can launch a new game with 1 faction and have it as civil war and have it actually work.

Outside the literal civil war games
WG launched a game with only one faction and generic models for American Civil War and did it again with English Civil War

 kodos wrote:
Outside the literal civil war games
WG launched a game with only one faction and generic models for American Civil War and did it again with English Civil War

They did also do it at a small scale. And let's be honest at that scale you could do quite alot of historical conflicts with one set of models that covered both sides.

 Overread wrote:
And lets face it, in the Wargaming market Space Marines are about the only army you can launch a new game with 1 faction and have it as civil war and have it actually work.

I must mention Adeptus Titanicus.

For some people, the latest GW release is always "the new pattern" you can use to divine future releases.

Lets see if Chaos is actual the next Faction

We have a lack of the most essential Faction - The Empire.

Well I actually hope for Beastmen, twice-be-damned!

Alhough with my luck, they come with Hippies/Wood Elves as package deal.

RazorEdge wrote:
Lets see if Chaos is actual the next Faction

We have a lack of the most essential Faction - The Empire.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were the last one, and were paired up with the first campaign book - using a new faction's worth of manufacturing for any unique characters and units from that.

Looks like they removed all dwarfs from AOS cities of sigmar. Maybe it's a sign that dwarfs are really close to be released

 clodax66 wrote:
Looks like they removed all dwarfs from AOS cities of sigmar. Maybe it's a sign that dwarfs are really close to be released

They had been no longer available for the past 2 months.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 clodax66 wrote:
Looks like they removed all dwarfs from AOS cities of sigmar. Maybe it's a sign that dwarfs are really close to be released

They had been no longer available for the past 2 months.

They were there 2 weeks ago when I was looking to see if they had dwarfs back in stock and when I checked today they weren't even there. At least in the US I am not sure about other places

What's weird is that the Cities of Sigmar faction focus specifically called out Dwarves - hell, one of their orders even has enhanced effects for Dwarven units. One has to assume that they haven't been yoinked from the book (yet).

Perhaps this is an indication that Cities are losing their Dwarves soon?

If they’re in the book still, they could be getting new models with a more unified “Cities” aesthetic, with the diamond heraldry and those funny helmets.

The slayers and Kharadron are also down as Duardin though right? So presumably they can just mean that.

I'd figure GW also want to make clear they are still in universe within Cities of Sigmar armies for all those people who have the minis.

 Olthannon wrote:
The slayers and Kharadron are also down as Duardin though right? So presumably they can just mean that.

I'd figure GW also want to make clear they are still in universe within Cities of Sigmar armies for all those people who have the minis.

They may be Duardin but they’re not Cities of Sigmar; they’re talking about things like the orders that say “a CoS unit can do X and if it’s also Duardin it can do Y” type stuff.