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 Snord wrote:
The heavy investment in plastic tanks doesn’t support the theory that they didn’t expect HH 2.0 to succeed. The Kratos, for example, is not the kind of kit that would be produced for a system that was likely to fail. But maybe it exceeded expectations - and perhaps they underestimated the number of players looking to escape from 9th Edition 40k. They also seem to be struggling with production capacity - perhaps there’s a design bottleneck as well.

But what was the first thing the kratos got? 40k rules. And which faction has some of the most dedicated (read paying) players (for better or worse... primaris cough)? Marines. It would sell regardless due to that. What wouldn't really sell is firstborn and even that is inaccurate considering that marine players are split between primaris and non primaris users. No, i think they played it mostly safe, made one "really new thing" Kratos and the jetbikes. And completly underestimated demand.

Logistics i think we can all agree are at a point that suck, and with ToW (another main game with a LOT of factions requiring plastics and cheap one at that else ToW will die like WHFB, let's be very clear here.) and with epic now also suddendly reapearing. That takes time, manpower and production aswell as warehouse capacity.
And GW still seems to have issues with warehouses.
But logistics start at the planning phase...

Not Online!!! wrote:
But what was the first thing the kratos got? 40k rules. And which faction has some of the most dedicated (read paying) players (for better or worse... primaris cough)? Marines. It would sell regardless due to that. What wouldn't really sell is firstborn and even that is inaccurate considering that marine players are split between primaris and non primaris users. No, i think they played it mostly safe, made one "really new thing" Kratos and the jetbikes. And completly underestimated demand.

Or GW does what it always does to maximise sales and gives any new HH vehicles 40k rules. Off the top of my head, only the Arquitor has never gotten 40k rules. By your logic, I guess HH was always believed to be a failure all the way back when Betrayal came out and GW made 40k rules for all the brand-new Heresy vehicles there.

However you cut it, GW's supply isn't matching demand at any point on the process - neither in the quantity of new models released nor in the number or copies actually delivered to points of sale.

It's an objective fact that HH is being underproduced - for whatever reason - and they're soon adding two more games that will compete for the same production slots.

It is my personal belief that HH would have several times the playerbase it has now, at least for a short time, if GW did a better job picking which units get made into plastic first (and cast enough of them to satisfy demand)

Is it an objective fact? Because underproduced is not the same as subject to unexpectedly high demand, is it?

One need only take a look at GW’s last few annual reports to see their sales have drastically increased. To the point they had to build a second factory - which involved new Mains electricity being installed.

Production we know has a significant lead time. Think back to when we first saw the heavily blurred images of the big boxed set. The ones that got everyone excited.

Production for Heresy, and its allotted time, very likely began around then - if not earlier.

That all factors in. At the time they allotted production for the initial runs, their prediction would be based on sales at that point. Not just existing Horus Heresy sales, but looking over their overall sales data. Which, by the time it hit shelves, would be wildly out of date.

Add in social distancing and the impact of COVID (fewer people in the factory, clean down times between shifts) and the second factory just won’t have increased production as much as expected, because neither are/were running at anything like full capacity.

Now. Numbers entirely out of my arse for sake of demonstration - and the simple fact we do not know what GW’s production runs look like.

But let’s say they produced 50,000 copies of Age of Darkness prior to release. Those of course sold through, as did all the other kits. What can they reasonably do about that, when the numbers only suggest everything is selling in higher than expected numbers. Your production capacity remains finite. And you’ve other stuff squelching down the pipeline, inexorably closer to its own release. What else can they do, except their best to get stuff back on shelves as quickly as possible.

Because whilst “help, we’re selling too much” is a nice problem to have, it is still a problem. And not something they can magic wand away.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Now. Numbers entirely out of my arse for sake of demonstration - and the simple fact we do not know what GW’s production runs look like.

But let’s say they produced 50,000 copies of Age of Darkness prior to release. Those of course sold through, as did all the other kits. What can they reasonably do about that, when the numbers only suggest everything is selling in higher than expected numbers. Your production capacity remains finite. And you’ve other stuff squelching down the pipeline, inexorably closer to its own release. What else can they do, except their best to get stuff back on shelves as quickly as possible.

Because whilst “help, we’re selling too much” is a nice problem to have, it is still a problem. And not something they can magic wand away.

That's the point where in theory, their new and improved ERP system would come in, which would - again, in theory- allow for all sorts of 'agile' mumbo-jumbo like short-term switching of machine slots due to real-time forecasting of opportunity costs between kits and other things like that (i.e. highly-demanded stuff that was soon running out could be squeezed in to the detriment of other, slow-selling things), but unfortunately their systems migrations still seems to be unfinished and regularly causing problems. A thing which is not entirely unheard of for that sort of system - the common thing to do is choosing one and then sticking to it for as long as humanely possible, because migration is that much of a PitA - but probably throws all sorts of spanners into their plans of having a modern-day production environment.

 Gert wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
But what was the first thing the kratos got? 40k rules. And which faction has some of the most dedicated (read paying) players (for better or worse... primaris cough)? Marines. It would sell regardless due to that. What wouldn't really sell is firstborn and even that is inaccurate considering that marine players are split between primaris and non primaris users. No, i think they played it mostly safe, made one "really new thing" Kratos and the jetbikes. And completly underestimated demand.

Or GW does what it always does to maximise sales and gives any new HH vehicles 40k rules. Off the top of my head, only the Arquitor has never gotten 40k rules. By your logic, I guess HH was always believed to be a failure all the way back when Betrayal came out and GW made 40k rules for all the brand-new Heresy vehicles there.

or it could be that gw realises that rules sell models so if a model can be used in multiple rulesets it will sell despite maybee one ruleset being not in favour, hence why FW HH vehicles always often had before even HH was a thing rules for 40k. Also HH 1.0 rulebook was 2017 according to the lexicanum. Calth was 2015.

And HH 1.0 was very small and stagnant for a long time, let's not pretend otherwise. And even if calth was a water tester the fact that it wasn't followed up is GW probably going "Oh gak it sells!" and greenlighting Bleighs game (main rulebook was out 2017). Only for the later to hand in his spoon at an unfortunate time.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Because whilst “help, we’re selling too much” is a nice problem to have, it is still a problem. And not something they can magic wand away.

Well, it indeed is, the bigger problem is then and probably were GW failed, to ask the question " OH we now have x ammount of new HH players that want to diversify their armies according to their legions and we have 6 (?) basic troops in the book? Half the legions want to go stab stuff and we only got bajonet tacticals sofar? What else do we need fast?!?"
and the answer to that question is, most certainly not a niche knight that is even niche within the knights lists whilest knights themselves are already niche.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Is it an objective fact? Because underproduced is not the same as subject to unexpectedly high demand, is it?

Here's an objective fact for you:


Producing less than demand is underproducing, I don't know what else it could be. We don't know for sure where the goalposts are, but they're not being reached.

But going by what retailers say their allocations for new HH releases are tiny, so yes, I do believe the problem is supply being unusually low end rather than demand being unusually high. This is not even particular to HH but has been the case for GW in general for a while.

Surprisngly both tartaros and the scorpious are just good units to expand basically all legions. The jetbikes not so much but i will freely admit they look snazy and wouldn't mind some.
but i'd rather have seekers ..

but as we see, doesn't matter since we anyways don't have any available

Horus heresy just used the 7th ed rulebook before 2017, and was pretty popular even before calth. Granted the plastic sprues was what made it more accessible (I didn't get a legion on the go until prospero as I wanted Mk2/3 marines and couldn't stomach the cost, so I played mechanicum before then, which in those crazy times was actually cheaper than a legion!)

HH models aren’t the only ones that are frequently unavailable. As I said, they seem to have a problem with production capacity. But this kind of thing always morphs into a conspiracy theory - “GW thought HH would fail”; “GW is trying to strangle HH”, and of course “HH is a dying game”.

Still isn’t addressing the fact production levels are set far in advance, and when you’re producing multiple lines, all the time, you can’t tinker with your plans too much.

It is not a sign it’s being deliberately underproduced, which let’s face it is the real claim here.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It is not a sign it’s being deliberately underproduced, which let’s face it is the real claim here.

What does that even mean? I've not seen anyone, certainly not myself, claim that GW are trying to sabotage their own product, if that's what you mean. Heck I've not even seen anyone accuse them of FOMO, which was a hot topic, what, a year back?

Not Online!!! wrote:
or it could be that gw realises that rules sell models so if a model can be used in multiple rulesets it will sell despite maybee one ruleset being not in favour, hence why FW HH vehicles always often had before even HH was a thing rules for 40k. Also HH 1.0 rulebook was 2017 according to the lexicanum. Calth was 2015.

And HH 1.0 was very small and stagnant for a long time, let's not pretend otherwise. And even if calth was a water tester the fact that it wasn't followed up is GW probably going "Oh gak it sells!" and greenlighting Bleighs game (main rulebook was out 2017).

Some things like the Contemptor, Stormeagle, and Deimos variants had 40k rules yes because HH was built on the groundwork set by the FW Badab series. GW also doesn't go by "rules sell models" and hasn't for some time.
Also, Betrayal is this:

This was released in 2012 and saw the introduction of units like Spartans and Fellblades. These units were ported to 40k a year later with Imperial Armour: Apocalypse 2013 and subsequent releases were given similar treatments in most cases. The Age of Darkness book was released because 40k was going to 8th Edition and HH needed a dedicated rulebook as up until that point it just used the 6th/7th Ed rules as they were the same basic system. The game had been going for five years by that point and was the prized pony of the Forgeworld catalogue.

Indeed, but as also stated until 2017 they did coopt the 7th ed rulesbook.
And something can be the priced pony of a subdivison but still be comparativly small, and HH was just that.

IMO, the Cerastus, regardless of the quality of the model, should not have been released now, and the tanks should have been spread out more over time, with the emphasis being on core troops. The whole release schedule has struck me as very tone-deaf.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Indeed, but as also stated until 2017 they did coopt the 7th ed rulesbook.

And? What point are you trying to make here?
Heresy units that were released post-2012 never got 40k rules before Heresy rules because they were not primarily for 40k. That they got 40k rules does not mean GW thought HH was a failure of a system but rather it was purely based on getting as much money from Marine players as possible.

And something can be the priced pony of a subdivison but still be comparativly small, and HH was just that.

Compared to 40k and WHFB/AoS sure but it's still that today. But what purpose does it serve to bring that up? I don't see anyone claiming HH was bigger than any other main system. What I said was right, FW basically lived off of HH from the moment it was released up until MESBG was relaunched and the specialist games came back in recent years.

My point still is, and remains that HH was a gamble that GW only recently took and as such is why we only got renders for assault marines instead of the easier to use in 40k vehicles.

A gamble would have been releasing HH 2 with no prior plastic support whatsoever. Instead we've has HH for 10 years as a ruleset with 2 box sets dedicated to plastic Heresy miniatures.
HH 2 wasn't a gamble, it was poorly planned and the higher customer interest was fumbled but it was not a gamble.
For it to be a gamble it would need to have a significant chance of either backfiring or failing completely and that just wasn't on the cards when the initial launch products were as good a showing as they were. The entry price for HH plummeted and the new kits offered excellent replacements for older FW ones.

Yea a huge box of fresh marine sculpts at 50% discount is not exactly a high risk product

Gert wrote:A gamble would have been releasing HH 2 with no prior plastic support whatsoever. Instead we've has HH for 10 years as a ruleset with 2 box sets dedicated to plastic Heresy miniatures.
HH 2 wasn't a gamble, it was poorly planned and the higher customer interest was fumbled but it was not a gamble.
For it to be a gamble it would need to have a significant chance of either backfiring or failing completely and that just wasn't on the cards when the initial launch products were as good a showing as they were. The entry price for HH plummeted and the new kits offered excellent replacements for older FW ones.

lord_blackfang wrote:Yea a huge box of fresh marine sculpts at 50% discount is not exactly a high risk product

But that is my point. HH may be very marine centric but they could've also picked SA or Daemons. And even then a ruleset plus plastic minis requiring tooling etc. is still a risk because with plastic you require a higher volume of sales to break even compared to resin. From GW's perspective it may well have been considered a risk, because it didn't know how well it would sell (especially on the rulesfront) so i think GW played it safe and did so continuosly with the tankocalypse that we wittnessed. But avoided the infantry preciscly because of it being risk averse.

Sorry if this was already mentioned, but I wonder if the reason the assault marines seem so late in development is because they weren't originally planned to be full kits? Maybe they were originally going for a conversion kit for the existing plastic Mk6 (arms and jump packs) until someone higher up suddenly changed it?

Not Online!!! wrote:
But that is my point. HH may be very marine centric but they could've also picked SA or Daemons. And even then a ruleset plus plastic minis requiring tooling etc. is still a risk because with plastic you require a higher volume of sales to break even compared to resin. From GW's perspective it may well have been considered a risk, because it didn't know how well it would sell (especially on the rulesfront) so i think GW played it safe and did so continuosly with the tankocalypse that we wittnessed. But avoided the infantry preciscly because of it being risk averse.

So hold on.
GW took a "gamble" doing plastic HH (highly unlikely) but then didn't take a gamble by making it Marines. That is some stellar logic.
Have you considered that the market for Heresy was larger than GW knew and that the AoD box was a safe release that was far more popular than expected? Because that's what most people are seeing here.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Sorry if this was already mentioned, but I wonder if the reason the assault marines seem so late in development is because they weren't originally planned to be full kits? Maybe they were originally going for a conversion kit for the existing plastic Mk6 (arms and jump packs) until someone higher up suddenly changed it?

I... honestly... the assault marine WIP render was pretty much exactly as far along as you could expect if they started sculpting them on the day WarCom said "we hear you, more plastic infantry is coming"

Like our desire to have the second one of the two most basic units genuinely took them by surprise.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Sorry if this was already mentioned, but I wonder if the reason the assault marines seem so late in development is because they weren't originally planned to be full kits? Maybe they were originally going for a conversion kit for the existing plastic Mk6 (arms and jump packs) until someone higher up suddenly changed it?

I... honestly... the assault marine WIP render was pretty much exactly as far along as you could expect if they started sculpting them on the day WarCom said "we hear you, more plastic infantry is coming"

Like our desire to have the second one of the two most basic units genuinely took them by surprise.

I think someone said it in the big HH thread in news and rumors, but the render could be from any time. Given how GW operates the assault mk6 have been ready for at least a year, and they’re just showing a bare bones render to limit the ability for 3rd party suppliers to copy the design and soak up the market before their product is released. And while that’s a shockingly intelligent move by GW bed-rock low standards, for a semi competent company it’s the obvious move given how the 3rd party market has stepped up in a big way to fill the massive gaps they’ve left in the range.

This is mostly based on how GW always produces and sits on their product for a minimum of a year before it’s properly shown off and released.

 Gert wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
But that is my point. HH may be very marine centric but they could've also picked SA or Daemons. And even then a ruleset plus plastic minis requiring tooling etc. is still a risk because with plastic you require a higher volume of sales to break even compared to resin. From GW's perspective it may well have been considered a risk, because it didn't know how well it would sell (especially on the rulesfront) so i think GW played it safe and did so continuosly with the tankocalypse that we wittnessed. But avoided the infantry preciscly because of it being risk averse.

So hold on.
GW took a "gamble" doing plastic HH (highly unlikely) but then didn't take a gamble by making it Marines. That is some stellar logic.
Have you considered that the market for Heresy was larger than GW knew and that the AoD box was a safe release that was far more popular than expected? Because that's what most people are seeing here.

You got the gist of it. I assert that they basically were so surprised.
A new line game = Risk (reminder you require design , print, hours and logistics aswell as production). Marines = minimising of risk. Tanks = dual ruleset use = further lowering risk. Marine firstborn infantry = higher risk than tanks due to primaris shift.

Gw failed to project that HH would sell to the point you are making. Ergo they avoided infantry, hence why we got renders instead of assault marines.
What gw did here is my claim, is mere risk mitigation and by extention GW "gambled" on it but did so with a very specific set of units, which would get cross rules use.

i think GW showing previews and teases is a vain attempt to stop people going to the 3d printers on the promise "we'll deliver on the troop types sometime kids! so don't go to the 3d printers because it will totally be a waste of your resources if you do because you know we'll release them just after you finished printing, you'll see..."

Meanwhile, i'm looking at the mk4 jump pack upgrade kit shaped hole in my life since BaC and wondering why anyone has any faith in them at any point.

The Cerastus Knight Lancer in plastic is another sign of 'GW going to do random gak for unpublished reasons' that i suspect is driven by the finance&accounting dept.

How would a niche knight type, in an already niche faction be driven by the accountants though?

That is what confuses me about this, why not use the significant labour for the knight to make assault and breacher marines instead which would be an bigger Market and a not niche?

Not Online!!! wrote:
How would a niche knight type, in an already niche faction be driven by the accountants though?

That is what confuses me about this, why not use the significant labour for the knight to make assault and breacher marines instead which would be an bigger Market and a not niche?

40k knights sell like hotcakes and accountants, utterly lacking any wider context of the games they sell, legitimately have absolutely no comprehension why a 30k knight will not?

i'm saying it's an accounting strategy because they know the kinds of sales figures they get for larger kits and therefore know the kind of ballpark region of income they will get from it due to initial sales.
Cruicially, the CKL doesn't require the consumer to have an existing kit in order to build it, so for an investor/shareholder perspective it's a far more consistent selling option.

It all makes a lot more sense if you forget everything you know about the game and just go by a shares/business strategy

GW have been on a victory lap since the start of covid where their share price was the most solidly rising stock in britain and their approach to investor dividends is tailored to long-term stock holders like pension funds, hedge funds and other dividend based investing.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
How would a niche knight type, in an already niche faction be driven by the accountants though?

That is what confuses me about this, why not use the significant labour for the knight to make assault and breacher marines instead which would be an bigger Market and a not niche?

40k knights sell like hotcakes and accountants, utterly lacking any wider context of the games they sell, legitimately have absolutely no comprehension why a 30k knight will not?

Out of all of gw's departments i don't think it's the accounting that is incompetent.
Actually maybee they took the niche of the niche to gage the market for hh more accurately?