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How do they get people to buy stuff? By making stuff for people to buy.

You're making up all these terms 'faction stratagems', 'detachment strategems', etc.

We know about a page of rules, 6 strats, and 4 enhancements. That's it. You replace if you want to use a different detachment. Fin.

Maybe some people will buy new stuff just because. But no one is going to say, I want to buy 15 assault centurions, 9 voidweavers or 5 NDKs, just because the models exist.

The page of rules is in the index. As soon as you start getting codex the rules will no longer be "one page", which GW did say in a such a way that it sounded as if they ment a double spread one page.

There are going to be faction strats, there are going to be detachment, old subfaction, strats and GW said there will be stuff for heroes/warlords. You think that if codex BA comes out it is not going to have specific BA relics, stratagems etc? It will have those, and it will have those "army mostly out of DC", "army mostly out of sang guard" detachments too. each with its own set of rules, relics and stratagems. Now those detachments, which look like todays subfactions, will probably not use the regular stuff. So there isn't going to be any Gladius Death Company detachment of BA.

Ok, well, I guess we'll find out. Make a note to review once we have a codex.

Also I hope you not that your example of "pushed" units are from 8th.

You want examples of "pushed" models from 9th? Voidweavers, the entire Votan Line where people printed their armies and then GW changed the rules, some even pre orders stuff from actual GW. NDKS being a +5, later +4 option for GK. Dragoons for ad mecha, and their flyers too. Karkin are so good that not only is GW out of stock, but people also bought out recasts and even expensive GW side games just to have a few squads.


But you are right, after the first non core marine book, we are all going to know how the initial 5-6 books in 10th are going to look like. IMO GW with the system they are putting up right now, and how similar systems work in AoS. Would be stupid to not multiply detachments, sub faction etc rules and put them behind a pay wall.

Ah and because I don't have mentioned it. I don't think the whole thing would be bad. Just a regular normal GW thing, they do with their other games too.

Votann who were nerfed heavily BEFORE RELEASE?
Yes. They were so pushed.

Your joking right, the leaks come alway from GW, the rules Votan were given were circulating 1-2 months in advance. Here the recast forges were running hot making Vottan stuff. Same way the new IG box was being reprinted, alongside the kasarkin. And the orders were not mostly coming from people in Poland, I can tell you that.

Karol wrote:
Your joking right, the leaks come alway from GW, the rules Votan were given were circulating 1-2 months in advance. Here the recast forges were running hot making Vottan stuff. Same way the new IG box was being reprinted, alongside the kasarkin. And the orders were not mostly coming from people in Poland, I can tell you that.

Yes. The rules released early-and then got nerfed before general release of the models.

Karol wrote:
Your joking right, the leaks come alway from GW, the rules Votan were given were circulating 1-2 months in advance. Here the recast forges were running hot making Vottan stuff. Same way the new IG box was being reprinted, alongside the kasarkin. And the orders were not mostly coming from people in Poland, I can tell you that.

I'm pretty sure GW didn't push Votann or Kasarkin to give the recasters a way to make money. If they were pushing things, they would have ample stock available for purchase.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yes. The rules released early-and then got nerfed before general release of the models.

Yeah. It would be interesting perhaps to identify what the longest-running power unit of 9th was, but the last few years have been fairly poor for things being "pushed" - because GW step in and nerf them so quickly. A certain mix of DE stuff (Wracks for instance) through 2021 perhaps?

GW can't very easily "push" things if they are OP for about a month - or in the case of Votann, never if you didn't proxy. I mean what's the Voidweaver timeline? Codex released on 5th March - after fairly muted commentary from the professional circuit. Becomes more or less universal in Tournaments next weekend and is clearly too strong. Much crying up to Adepticon 4 weekends later. GW goes "yeah seems a bit good and we'll be pulling back" on 4th April (i.e. the monday after). They then nerf them with the dataslate released 10 days later.

Tyranids went through something similar. Anyone who rushed out to buy say 2 Maleceptors ended up looking a bit silly.

If you want to see things "pushed" you have to go back in time. To the era where GW would release broken stuff - and then just leave it for half a decade. With the only release being the fact they'd be rolling out "even more broken" stuff over that time, that might eventually change the meta.

I think people overestimate the amount of people who are pure pay to win. In general I think people overestimate how likely they are to compete on the top tables against the best.

I would also argue that it is generally good for people to burn themselves on thinking they could pay to win in general. I would assume most people who play Warhammer of any sort want it to be a hobby that includes its various aspects and not just tryhards competing on who can buy the most of the best units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:

If you want to see things "pushed" you have to go back in time. To the era where GW would release broken stuff - and then just leave it for half a decade. With the only release being the fact they'd be rolling out "even more broken" stuff over that time, that might eventually change the meta.

I think the only unit that has some quote from an ex-employee about being pushed was the Wraithknight in 6th. That unit was also bonkers if you think about it.

Ultimately people squeal in this internet age and with the churn at the GW office I'd expect more tattletales than not. Hell, Peachy revealed some of his work on his channel and most of it sounded more like incompetence than anything else.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Votann who were nerfed heavily BEFORE RELEASE?
Yes. They were so pushed.

Yeah. GW got worried they might not sell any models with tournaments banning them...

OP rules sell. But inability to use models makes sure try hards aren't buying them. Why buy model you can't use?

That was emergency when their marketing ploy was too obvious and was about to spectacularly blow up in their face.

They were "banned" from like 3 tournaments, all of which were before the LoV book went to general release right?

 Eldarsif wrote:
I think the only unit that has some quote from an ex-employee about being pushed was the Wraithknight in 6th. That unit was also bonkers if you think about it.

Ultimately people squeal in this internet age and with the churn at the GW office I'd expect more tattletales than not. Hell, Peachy revealed some of his work on his channel and most of it sounded more like incompetence than anything else.

Yeah. We've had enough tattletales to know GW see rules writing as the bottom of the hierarchy.
"Makes me cool rules."
"Here you go."
"Sure these look great."
"Don't you want to test them?"
"...? I'm trying to organise an international business with thousands of staff and hundreds of millions of turnover. Do you really think I care what the D-weapon rule does? I'm sure its fine."

My main point is that "pushing" requires time. The number of people who are obsessively pay to win is tiny. But if say Wraith Knights are going to be the best Eldar unit for 2 years - its not a huge imposition for people deep down the competitive foodchain to find £70 and buy one. Same if say Riptides are going to be best thing Tau have (+/-) for 7 years. A Tau player can find the time and money to end up buying 2-3.

The reason 9th has been the tournament edition is that they are clearly "trying" (with however many issues along the way because codexes gotta creep) to meet up with the 40k Professional Circuit which are focused on rules and power. Hence why problems get picked up in a month. Or even before the models get dropped like Votann. Presumably because they think its good marketing. A happy tournament scene builds hype which encourages everyone else to buy in. Even if in practice the vast majority of players never saw 9 Voidweavers on the table - or even knew what a Cthonian Beserks is - or why it would be massively overpowered at 22 points.

 catbarf wrote:
We now play Battlefleet Gothic, Grimdark Future, and Alpha Strike instead.

Out of curiosity, do you play this with boilerplate rules or with house rules? I'm planning to make the jump from Classic and try AS soon, but the ranges seem a bit wonky to me (ie. how a Locust or other fastboi can cross a 4x4 table in 2-3 moves) and I've been wondering if using one of the "halve all ranges" house rules would make for a better experience.

 Kanluwen wrote:
They were "banned" from like 3 tournaments, all of which were before the LoV book went to general release right?

Yes, the "gw nerfed them because events banned factions whose book isn't on general sale, like the events do for all armies in that state" tune is one often misinterpreted by pretty much everyone.

Tournaments don't impact sales as heavily as people pretend, 99% of the playerbase will be at home/clubs and won't care. What they might care about is the bad press however. None of that suggests that banning them in those exact circumstances actually mattered to the eventual outcome however.

Not every tournament bans new book by default. Plenty allow.

So when tournaments that don't allow new book when they normally allow...

Add to that push for more as nobody wants to see army with wr 80%+ in tournaments...

GW isn't smartest but even they can see the obvious when it's fired at them with 252mm artirelly. That's too hard to not miss.

tneva82 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Votann who were nerfed heavily BEFORE RELEASE?
Yes. They were so pushed.

Yeah. GW got worried they might not sell any models with tournaments banning them...

OP rules sell. But inability to use models makes sure try hards aren't buying them. Why buy model you can't use?

That was emergency when their marketing ploy was too obvious and was about to spectacularly blow up in their face.

New models sell. People were lining up to buy squats the second they were teased without any rules whatsoever.

Ask yourself if you've ever bought a model, JUST because of OP rules. I know I haven't. And if the forum is to be believed most people here don't either or they're pretty much hypocrites. I would have bought the Wraithknight regardless of rules, because it looks so friggin' cool.

Top players use second hand, print, borrow, and use the prize support they have to build armies. They're mostly college age kids that don't actually have a ton of money to chase the meta. The youtube personalities might now, but that's like Mani's thing.

Altruizine wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
We now play Battlefleet Gothic, Grimdark Future, and Alpha Strike instead.

Out of curiosity, do you play this with boilerplate rules or with house rules? I'm planning to make the jump from Classic and try AS soon, but the ranges seem a bit wonky to me (ie. how a Locust or other fastboi can cross a 4x4 table in 2-3 moves) and I've been wondering if using one of the "halve all ranges" house rules would make for a better experience.

AS is really best played on a 6x4 table with the default rules. But we play on hexes, dividing all inch values in half to get the same values as Classic. With the hexes being 1.25" across, a 4x3 hex mat provides ample room for maneuver in a lance-on-lance game, being nearly identical to a two-mapsheet setup for Classic. The only houserule we currently use is an alternative attack resolution rule where instead of rolling 2D6 and you either hit for full damage or miss for none, we roll 1 die for each point of damage on the profile plus a single 'pilot die' that gets added to each.

Death From Above Wargaming has a pretty popular set of houserules you might want to check out, which includes the above attack system and that halved-distance compressed scale for hexless gameplay. There are some other tweaks in there too that we're planning to try out, but the core gameplay is a straightforward translation of Classic to fast-play, so how much you have to houserule it really depends on what sorts of complaints you have about Classic.

Karol wrote:
Maybe some people will buy new stuff just because. But no one is going to say, I want to buy 15 assault centurions, 9 voidweavers or 5 NDKs, just because the models exist.

The vast majority of people that buy 40K models do literally that. Tournament players that metachase are the minority of buyers.

As with most things 40K I feel there's a middle ground between 'buy only meta models' and 'buy literally whatever looks cool with no regard for rules'.

If you look at Tyranids players in 8th Ed, there were a lot of Hive Guard being fielded even among casual players. You didn't need to be a hardcore tournament player to recognize that good units can help your list.

Personally, I'm not a competitive player at all, but getting stomped by my buddies just wasn't fun, so I bought some Hive Guard to prop up an otherwise underwhelming army.

And conversely I've seen a lot of people online steer newbies away from models that seem cool, but have awful rules.

Is GW aware of this? Probably. Do they deliberately skew rules to promote certain things? Dunno. I'd lean towards 'no' given the sheer inconsistency of power levels on new releases.

 catbarf wrote:
As with most things 40K I feel there's a middle ground between 'buy only meta models' and 'buy literally whatever looks cool with no regard for rules'.

If you look at Tyranids players in 8th Ed, there were a lot of Hive Guard being fielded even among casual players. You didn't need to be a hardcore tournament player to recognize that good units can help your list.

Personally, I'm not a competitive player at all, but getting stomped by my buddies just wasn't fun, so I bought some Hive Guard to prop up an otherwise underwhelming army.

And conversely I've seen a lot of people online steer newbies away from models that seem cool, but have awful rules.

Is GW aware of this? Probably. Do they deliberately skew rules to promote certain things? Dunno. I'd lean towards 'no' given the sheer inconsistency of power levels on new releases.

Hive guard are one of the survivor bias things. We know they did well, because they did appear, but no one ever went to look at lower ranked Nids to see if they had them or not. And we're talking perhaps 200 to 300 players in the tournament scene for those higher placings.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Hive guard are one of the survivor bias things. We know they did well, because they did appear, but no one ever went to look at lower ranked Nids to see if they had them or not. And we're talking perhaps 200 to 300 players in the tournament scene for those higher placings.

Er... I explicitly said I wasn't just talking about high-level competitive play; it's not like it's a total mystery what casual players buy. Go on Reddit or any of the Facebook groups and look at army shots from a couple of years ago and you'll see Hive Guard in more armies than not, even among players who will never attend a tournament.

Unclear the best "quality" shooting in the book is survivorship bias. Put behind Polystyrene Brick. Plink away for the game unless they get around to kill you. No issues with ignoring LOS shooting back then.

Devilgants and Dakkafexs were okay too I guess - but they were easier to take out because you have to expose them. Also shorter range - which I feel was more an issue in 8th because the missions/ITC facilitated gunline play much more than 9th has. Finally lots of AP- could run into problems with certain armies if players just wouldn't roll any 1s.

 catbarf wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Hive guard are one of the survivor bias things. We know they did well, because they did appear, but no one ever went to look at lower ranked Nids to see if they had them or not. And we're talking perhaps 200 to 300 players in the tournament scene for those higher placings.

Er... I explicitly said I wasn't just talking about high-level competitive play; it's not like it's a total mystery what casual players buy. Go on Reddit or any of the Facebook groups and look at army shots from a couple of years ago and you'll see Hive Guard in more armies than not, even among players who will never attend a tournament.

Yes, better rules will sell more models, but that's not the impetus for everyone. How many people putting out HG had them already? Did you buy 9 or did you pause a bit?

If you go to eBay right now and look at sold listings for Hive Guard they're selling almost daily even when they're not all that great.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Hive guard are one of the survivor bias things. We know they did well, because they did appear, but no one ever went to look at lower ranked Nids to see if they had them or not. And we're talking perhaps 200 to 300 players in the tournament scene for those higher placings.

Er... I explicitly said I wasn't just talking about high-level competitive play; it's not like it's a total mystery what casual players buy. Go on Reddit or any of the Facebook groups and look at army shots from a couple of years ago and you'll see Hive Guard in more armies than not, even among players who will never attend a tournament.

Yes, better rules will sell more models, but that's not the impetus for everyone. How many people putting out HG had them already? Did you buy 9 or did you pause a bit?

If you go to eBay right now and look at sold listings for Hive Guard they're selling almost daily even when they're not all that great.

There's a vast gulf between "everyone" and "not just the top competitors".

And who knows? Maybe people are buying them now for Tyrant Guard, since it's a dual kit.

I think the issue is "lackluster rules don't sell" more than "good rules do"

There have definitely been releases for my armies that are solidly "meh" that I would probably buy if I ever thought they would see the table.

My shelves are too full to buy more models just to paint and build them and shelve them.

So I won't buy a model *simply because* it has good rules, but I also will sometimes not buy a model because it has trash rules.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Yes, better rules will sell more models, but that's not the impetus for everyone.

There are pure collectors who will buy a model based on its fluff or aesthetics and don't give a damn about the rules.

There are extreme competitors who are all about the meta and have no investment in the fluff or hobby beyond gaming.

And then you've got everyone else in between, where they might pass on a cool model if it's a dumpster fire in-game, or buy a model that doesn't otherwise grab them because it seems useful.

I really don't think you need to do extensive market research to discover that group #3 exists, just look around at how people on social media talk about ugly-but-effective or cool-but-useless units. GW's still selling Biovores and it ain't because everyone loves the model.

Tyel wrote:


GW can't very easily "push" things if they are OP for about a month

Spoiler:

- or in the case of Votann, never if you didn't proxy. I mean what's the Voidweaver timeline? Codex released on 5th March - after fairly muted commentary from the professional circuit. Becomes more or less universal in Tournaments next weekend and is clearly too strong. Much crying up to Adepticon 4 weekends later. GW goes "yeah seems a bit good and we'll be pulling back" on 4th April (i.e. the monday after). They then nerf them with the dataslate released 10 days later.

Tyranids went through something similar. Anyone who rushed out to buy say 2 Maleceptors ended up looking a bit silly.

If you want to see things "pushed" you have to go back in time. To the era where GW would release broken stuff - and then just leave it for half a decade. With the only release being the fact they'd be rolling out "even more broken" stuff over that time, that might eventually change the meta.

Snip.

A majority of kit sales are seen shortly on its release. Ergo they'll sell more Wracks within the first month of their release than they will over several years immediately after. If a kit is around long enough (like the current carnifex, which is at least 15 years old IIRC) it's likely to eventually "catch up", especially if it sees a second patch in the sun later on as a particularly strong entry.

That's why stuff almost always goes out of stock on release, but almost never does again unless it's about to be discontinued; something GW has a schedule for way in advance, so they have literally years to slow / stop production and make sure stock runs dry.

And that's not to even comment on how things remain broken for significantly longer than a month. DE were the meta setters and "the" army to beat for the better part of a year. Clowns were also ripping scalps for at least half a year.

 morganfreeman wrote:

Tyel wrote:


GW can't very easily "push" things if they are OP for about a month

Spoiler:

- or in the case of Votann, never if you didn't proxy. I mean what's the Voidweaver timeline? Codex released on 5th March - after fairly muted commentary from the professional circuit. Becomes more or less universal in Tournaments next weekend and is clearly too strong. Much crying up to Adepticon 4 weekends later. GW goes "yeah seems a bit good and we'll be pulling back" on 4th April (i.e. the monday after). They then nerf them with the dataslate released 10 days later.

Tyranids went through something similar. Anyone who rushed out to buy say 2 Maleceptors ended up looking a bit silly.

If you want to see things "pushed" you have to go back in time. To the era where GW would release broken stuff - and then just leave it for half a decade. With the only release being the fact they'd be rolling out "even more broken" stuff over that time, that might eventually change the meta.

Snip.

A majority of kit sales are seen shortly on its release. Ergo they'll sell more Wracks within the first month of their release than they will over several years immediately after. If a kit is around long enough (like the current carnifex, which is at least 15 years old IIRC) it's likely to eventually "catch up", especially if it sees a second patch in the sun later on as a particularly strong entry.

That's why stuff almost always goes out of stock on release, but almost never does again unless it's about to be discontinued; something GW has a schedule for way in advance, so they have literally years to slow / stop production and make sure stock runs dry.

And that's not to even comment on how things remain broken for significantly longer than a month. DE were the meta setters and "the" army to beat for the better part of a year. Clowns were also ripping scalps for at least half a year.

The number of incorrect or unsupported things in this post are nearly too numerous to mention.

Where is the proof that more sales happen without the first month of release than in the next several years?

I think we can all document the fact that various items on the GW site go in and out of availability on a frequent basis. We definitely know things go out of stock on release weekend but become available again within weeks or months.

And we know GW is much better at correcting issues with recent release codexes than they are with older codexes that they botched implementation of Dataslates and MFMs on.

that is what GW once said about how and why they release things the way they do
because plastic kits sell on release window and if something does not sell during that time, it never will

the reason why rules and models are released together, why a line is split up on several release windows etc.


and they are not better at correcting issues recently than in the past, they are just faster if they don't want to wait on something printed