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 Pacific wrote:
MDG, I hope you are wrong about the miniature count and the army being that small (thus warranting a very high box price), because that .. well, that won't be Epic.

Also, they have said explicitly that this game is Heresy-era only. They might well expand to the GC if Legions Imperialis sells well but you have to think that would be years away. So for now, if you want to do that, you'd need to take off the water wings and go for either NetEpic or NetArmageddon.

Oh that’s pure numbers out my bum for illustrative purposes only.

Looking at the contents of the boxed sets and assuming the pastebin info is accurate, it seems reasonable to assume a standard game of LI is going to be comparable to some of the early 90's Space Marine battle reports.

These 4000pt WD games all fielded a similar number of equivalent units to what we'd see with a 3000pt LI army:

 Breotan wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Breotan - you really think £60/$100 for that support box? If so, the game will be DOA.

I could easily be wrong for using Aeronautica as my basis for comparison, but these models are a lot larger than you think, and they're multi-part as well. I would be shocked if this box were less than £40 because that would mean they waaaaaaaaay overcharged for Aeronautica stuff.

The value of AI sets was all over the place, if I was using AI as a guide I wouldn't have come to that price.

Most of the AI sets are 2 medium sized sprues, a couple of the worser-value ones are 1 medium sprue and 1 small sprue, the worst value ones are only 1 sprue (Phoenix bombers are single sprue kits with only 3 models). Then the bases are those 2" things which were not only cast but required assembly at the factory (maybe was outsourced to China?).

And planes are big, I expect those dreads to be half the size/bulk/plastic/sprue of a typical AI fighter, much less than half if the base is included. Number of options will make a difference though. I imagine they can fit 2 Leviathans, 2 Deredeos, 2 Rapiers and 2 Support Platforms on a single AI-fighter-sized sprue.

I think it will somewhat depend on how many models they can fit onto a sprue, I wouldn't be guessing £60 for a 2 medium sprue kit unless GW are intentionally trying to make the game unpopular, haha.

I'm sticking with my guesses of £105-110 for the new core box, and £30-35 for the support box.

With most AT and AI kits now vanishing from the website for reboxing, I'm curious to see how they reappear again.

With the info from today I'm increasingly doubtful that they'll all return in the same format as before. GW will definitely want to cut down on individual SKUs and I reckon the first things to go will be the separate titan weapon frames, instead being packed into the main kit.

With Knights & aircraft they may well take the HH route and rebox things with a 'discount', for example:
Six Questoris knights & and an upgrade sprue sold together for £40-50 (old kit was £27.50 for three knights)
Six Cerastus knights (2 of each type) packed together, sold at around £50-55.

 ohreally wrote:

 vadersson wrote:

I will be visiting England in September from the US. Should I wait to buy stuff in England at a store or buy it here in America? I am not sure how prices differ from the currency exchange rate.

It is generally cheaper to buy in the UK that way, but you might have trouble getting exactly what you want if initial stocks are low.

Keep in mind that the uk price usually has tax included and so is even more of a mark down then it seems since the us price is around 10 percent higher then tag says depending on what state your in and its sales tax rate. I was in England this last fall and saved a lot of money buying forgworld stuff at the gw hq store.

MrHobbles wrote:

 vadersson wrote:
Crazy question.

I will be visiting England in September from the US. Should I wait to buy stuff in England at a store or buy it here in America? I am not sure how prices differ from the currency exchange rate.

Without wanting to go off topic, if you happen to be visiting London, the Warhammer store on Tottenham Court Road is specifically set up for this. You can order in store using UK prices, get it delivered to a US address from the Memphis warehouse, with free shipping and without paying tax. It can work out much cheaper.

I've done this a few times and they've told me they're the only store set up to do this kind of order. It's a bit of a manual process for them (involving emailing warehouses), but they are well versed in the process.

A good opportunity to go crazy for LI.

As a warning, it can depend on stock levels in the US. I did a forgeworld order this way when I was over there in May and am still waiting for it to be shipped thanks to a couple of out of stock items.

$250-$299 for the main box and $125 for the Dread box.

95% chance of DoA and FoMo scalper instant sellout.

There is *ZERO* chance GW eats their own dick on this launch.

Game will be gone in 18 months max.

Ah Dakkadakka, never change

stratigo wrote:
Ah Dakkadakka, never change

Point out what's not accurate?

Every release is FOMO and sells out.

Most boxed games are either dead, dying, or limping along. I.E. AI, AT, CC, BF, and then the IV Drip games - BB, HH, Necro, KT

KT, Underworlds, and Warcry are only surviving off of big box FOMO (or terrain) releases with "seasons" to FOMO the purchase.

All evidence points to this release following the same pattern, therefore GW eating their wang on release, and history tells us the follow on boxes will be overpriced.

 TalonZahn wrote:

stratigo wrote:
Ah Dakkadakka, never change

Point out what's not accurate?

Every release is FOMO and sells out.

Most boxed games are either dead, dying, or limping along. I.E. AI, AT, CC, BF, and then the IV Drip games - BB, HH, Necro, KT

KT, Underworlds, and Warcry are only surviving off of big box FOMO (or terrain) releases with "seasons" to FOMO the purchase.

All evidence points to this release following the same pattern, therefore GW eating their wang on release, and history tells us the follow on boxes will be overpriced.

All of these "Dead games", even AI are going since years (4 years for AI), so your idea this game would be dead within 18 months is nonsense, especially since epic has a larger existing community already than AI ever did.
Necromunda, HH, lotr, BB are all going strong and get continous releases, moreso than games from some other companies. Yes, it's not on the level of Aos or 40K, but that's not necessarily bad for a game.
FOMO is a thing, yes, but unlike with many other companies you can actually get kits that were released 15 years ago from GW still, their FOMO mostly revolves about getting Minis cheaper, not about getting them at all.

it is not about getting models cheaper but also to get the models at all because there is no guarantee that a model exclusive to a box will see a stand alone release

just because some leftovers from a very different marketing and sales strategy are still available does not mean the new ones will be as well (so LotR is a bad example here as it does not follow the typical GW strategy, because they learned their lesson with that game the hard way)

and yes, if HorusHeresy Epic will get a similar release as the other new specialist games, it will have a hard time
it won't be the price of the boxes that might kill it but if those are limited releases or if the rules are fractured like with Necromunda

and yes, a lot of the newer niche games struggle in some areas to get players because after the pre-release hype you have the people playing that have played it before and hardly any new ones

 TalonZahn wrote:
$250-$299 for the main box and $125 for the Dread box.

95% chance of DoA and FoMo scalper instant sellout.

There is *ZERO* chance GW eats their own dick on this launch.

Game will be gone in 18 months max.

Those prices would be complete and absolutely unsustainable IMHO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:
and yes, if HorusHeresy Epic will get a similar release as the other new specialist games, it will have a hard time
it won't be the price of the boxes that might kill it but if those are limited releases or if the rules are fractured like with Necromunda

Another point, yeah. I gave up on Newcromunda rules specifically due to their practices.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Spikey bits brings up some good points. Hopefully GW has learned from AT how not to release a game. Games like AT and Necromunda where you are always fishing and paying for rules seriously drags down a games accessibility.

The fact that most of the units will be available in the main rule book would seem to indicate that they're doing things differently than AT18.

That said, I look forward to supplements that add to the base sometime in the future. I don't begrudge GW expansions as the game develops/expands.

 kodos wrote:
it is not about getting models cheaper but also to get the models at all because there is no guarantee that a model exclusive to a box will see a stand alone release

There's like 1 or 2 units you can't get anymore(cultists heavy weapons are one I think).

That fear is pretty darn unfounded. GW has habit of putting out because you know what? Selling kits at full price gives them better profit than at discount box

But yeah. You think GW hates money and doesnt' want it. Right. I get it. Rest of us know they want money and thus are only losing out on discount.

I kind of agree Schoon if it's to add a new faction or significant area of units. If we get something like an 'Istvaan V' book though which has a bunch of special rules, then I go for a pick-up game at my local club (which really, for me, is the big benefit of this game coming back officially) and my opponent says.. "uhhhh, are your guys sons of Horus? If so, the new book says my guys you've charged here get +2 CAF and re-rolls on my saving throws, cause we are playing our game after 6pm" then I'm going to cry

tneva82 wrote:
But yeah. You think GW hates money and doesnt' want it. Right. I get it. Rest of us know they want money and thus are only losing out on discount.

or you could stop making up stuff no one said and just write nothing if you don't have anything to say

 kodos wrote:
it won't be the price of the boxes that might kill it but if those are limited releases or if the rules are fractured like with Necromunda

I wonder if they'll do what Aeronautica did and publish campaign books every six months, adding new unit rules that way. I also wonder how much and which stuff will be put out by FW as resin models (you know they're going to do it).

tneva82 wrote:

 kodos wrote:
it is not about getting models cheaper but also to get the models at all because there is no guarantee that a model exclusive to a box will see a stand alone release

There's like 1 or 2 units you can't get anymore(cultists heavy weapons are one I think).

That fear is pretty darn unfounded. GW has habit of putting out because you know what? Selling kits at full price gives them better profit than at discount box

But yeah. You think GW hates money and doesnt' want it. Right. I get it. Rest of us know they want money and thus are only losing out on discount.

In the past 2-3 years GW made... like 7 sprues of catacomb terrain, 7 sprues of foundry terrain and 10 sprues of meat trees for Warcry... probably a bigger investment than all tooling done for Epic so far and definitely bigger than all of AI put together... exactly zero of those are available to buy now except a few copies of the last Warcry box in non-english langauges.

So apparently GW are totally fine with dumping massive resources into an underprinted FOMO box, selling less than what they would if they printed enough, and then just throwing those tools out the window with zero chance they paid for themselves.

 kodos wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
But yeah. You think GW hates money and doesnt' want it. Right. I get it. Rest of us know they want money and thus are only losing out on discount.

or you could stop making up stuff no one said and just write nothing if you don't have anything to say

In return, it would be nice if certain posters would stop proclaiming everything GW does DOA before it’s even released, especially based on prices they made up to offend themselves.

Because it’s terribly tiresome.

As long as a single player remains for any given games system, it's not "dead"

Get over yourselves and your hyperbole

 TalonZahn wrote:

stratigo wrote:
Ah Dakkadakka, never change

Point out what's not accurate?

Every release is FOMO and sells out.

Most boxed games are either dead, dying, or limping along. I.E. AI, AT, CC, BF, and then the IV Drip games - BB, HH, Necro, KT

KT, Underworlds, and Warcry are only surviving off of big box FOMO (or terrain) releases with "seasons" to FOMO the purchase.

All evidence points to this release following the same pattern, therefore GW eating their wang on release, and history tells us the follow on boxes will be overpriced.

What a comical argument. Boxed games are simultaneously dying but also popular enough to completely sell out? Very much looking forward to Schrodinger's Epic.

Almost every game listed above has a totally different purpose and release strategy to mainline Epic. Most are skirmish or one-off boardgames with little repeat sales potential. To be a success they all have to sell small quantities to a wide audience. GW can't plausibly sell most people several copies of the same Necromunda gang, AI planes, or Warcry warband. BF and CC are self-contained boardgames, and the vast majority of sales occur in the first month. KT is also used as a way to complement the main 40k model range.

For Epic they can certainly try to build up a wide audience, but that's not critical as Epic scale is not restricted in anywhere near the same way as skirmish games. Players getting muliple copies of the same kits is actively encouraged. Players using the same kits as each other is designed for.
All evidence points to this release being an attempt to build up a new game system in a similar way to Adeptus Titanicus or last year's 28mm HH. There are multiple distinct ranges of models being expanded on or built from scratch. There is new terrain coming. Everything announced so far is plastic, including an unprecedented replacement for a resin kit released only 12 months ago. This all screams 'longterm investment', and says it much louder than for AT in 2018.

Now if that new game system sticks around indefinitely or not depends entirely on how well it sells. I honestly hope that the core box is completely sold out on release day, because that only helps to cement further content for us in future.

I hope you're right, xttz

But excuse me for being jaded when stuff happens like 15 months into the Ash Wastes two core gangs still don't have a bespoke vehicle (but we got a dozen one-shot-and-immediately-OOP sprues of Warcry terrain in the same timeframe)

 xttz wrote:
Boxed games are simultaneously dying but also popular enough to completely sell out?

It's only a contradiction if you assume GW is producing large numbers of them rather than cutting production and using FOMO to guarantee the limited production run sells. If GW produces 10 boxes of Epic and all of them sell out instantly that is a sign of low production volume not popularity. And it certainly won't have much life with those sales numbers.

This all screams 'longterm investment'

So did AI 2.0 with multiple kits for multiple factions, all plastic, terrain, special bases, and a nice pace of new releases. And then it flipped to "no more investment" followed by everything but the Epic-related stuff going OOP and the game being dropped.

Don't forget the Warcry warbands of dudes with cages on their heads, that classic fantasy trope that all of us had been crying out for for decades.

Agree with xttz on this one, I think there is a potential for it to become another 'main' game alongside 40k and AoS, just because it is another 'big battle' game. Also, because it is God's own scale, and it is unacceptable that it hasn't been available officially for so long!

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
So did AI 2.0 with multiple kits for multiple factions, all plastic, terrain, special bases, and a nice pace of new releases. And then it flipped to "no more investment" followed by everything but the Epic-related stuff going OOP and the game being dropped.

I do wonder if it's because the game faltered in some way, sales wise. The rules were certainly worse than the 1st edition. Things point to it being initially popular with more and more resin releases over time and tailing off. They never did release a Chaos airforce...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pacific wrote:
Don't forget the Warcry warbands of dudes with cages on their heads, that classic fantasy trope that all of us had been crying out for for decades.

Agree with xttz on this one, I think there is a potential for it to become another 'main' game alongside 40k and AoS, just because it is another 'big battle' game. Also, because it is God's own scale, and it is unacceptable that it hasn't been available officially for so long!

Epic returing to the mainline games stable? It's like the 90's again

Warcry is also used as complement to AoS, so there's a point to get multiple warbands. The game itself is sadly not marketed as anything else than an entry to AoS, IMHO - which would explain why there's no longstanding starter so far.

Legion Imperialis is clearly different. It is indeed intended to be sold in multiples simply because of the scale of the battles. And since it is Horus Heresy - meaning a civil war background -, the factions involved are mostly the same for either side. So you can use the same miniatures for each with ease...and the scale also means details like painting the Legion's heraldry doesn't matter as much as a 32mm scale miniature (I guess you could do that for every LI 10mm space marine, but except for the mad painters, there's not much point to paint something that won't be readable on a normal tabletop game).

So it means they can focus on a certain amount of details for unit types (different kinds of vehicles and such) while still selling them to a wide audience, because they can be used by all players in the end.

It's not the same as a Warcry warband that appeals only to that warband's playerbase. It's not like you can use flesh-eaters miniatures if you tend to play Order factions.

FOMO can happen for "deal bundles" and such, but so far it seems that they're talking about core boxes. I'm pretty sure we will be able to buy separate compononts with their own individual boxes in case of the "starters" being limited.

What may happen is the AT case when it launched ; being too popular and selling like crazy beyong GW's expectations, leading to a "temporary unavailable" for a while. It's sadly the norm nowadays. Waiting a bit has its own virtue.

There certainly can be some "exclusive / limited miniatures" like some Emperor's children special terminator squads and such, but at LI's scale, I suspect they won't choose a "different profile" approach. I believe it's more a "gimmick" rule and the effect is mostly an aesthetic one (like different miniatures from "normal" terminators). So they will matter much more for a collection purpose than anything else.

As for the prices...better just wait when they're officially released (or when the leaks from retailers begin to appear). There's absolutely no point to talk about "DOA".

I’m gonna disagree.

AI, like Adeptus Titanicus, is so focussed on a single type of warfare it’s going to have a more limited appeal than Epic, which is a game of combined arms and the resultant strategies involved.

Add in both only require very modest forces, and don’t necessarily scale upwards that well, and you have a different consideration entirely to Epic Scale.

2nd Ed itself did scale quite nicely, with the only drag being someone overly dithering with choosing their orders (which to be honest, is nothing a clock based time limit couldn’t fix. Say 5 minutes basic, with extra time per X points over nominal base of Y points). But the actual meat and bones? Movement was straight forward. Shooting was nice and simple (if I hit, you make or fail your save) and HTH was likewise far from complex).

And scaling well upwards means more and more sales, because whilst I won’t necessarily play Really Big Games regularly? Adding units to change up my base army is always more appealing when I know that, should I wish, it’s just time and organisation needed to field the whole Bally lot.

And the more we experiment with our lists by swapping new units in and out, the more likely we are to find something which performed above our initial expectation, and send us down another list rabbit hole, leading to more sales.

 zedmeister wrote:
I do wonder if it's because the game faltered in some way, sales wise. The rules were certainly worse than the 1st edition. Things point to it being initially popular with more and more resin releases over time and tailing off. They never did release a Chaos airforce...

I suspect that's what it was. The models were cool but the game was a dysfunctional mess and once people tried it they didn't stick around. So once GW finished off the plastic releases that had already been paid for they put the game into a holding pattern and eventually decided to just dump it.

Epic 2.0 does at least have the advantage of starting with more existing demand than a niche game like AI 1.0 but if the rules aren't good it has the potential to crash hard, especially given the abundant third-party options for both models and rules. And if sales don't back up the hype GW has shown they're perfectly willing to kill off an all-plastic "major investment game". Epic 2.0 having a bunch of plastic content doesn't guarantee anything beyond the launch wave and maybe 1-2 more releases that are already in the queue.

"No more investment" doesn't mean they can't use what was produced so far. If we have a good basis like most of Horus Heresy SM released in LI scale, we can basically play forever.

But it's good to remember that in this capitalistic world, nothing is meant to be produced for all eternity. It's natural to see things go after a while...and mostly replaced by something else, like new miniatures and new games.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
AI, like Adeptus Titanicus, is so focussed on a single type of warfare it’s going to have a more limited appeal than Epic, which is a game of combined arms and the resultant strategies involved.

I don't think that's at all true. X-Wing was equally focused on a single type of warfare and was a spectacular success for several years, only really failing when FFG/AMG fell into the GW trap of major edition changes. AI 2.0 failed because it was a bad game, a dumbed-down "meet in the middle and roll dice" version of the far superior first edition that had minimal strategy and minimal replay value. And that threat remains for Epic: no matter how cool the concept is if GW botches the gameplay it will be dead within a year or two.