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Long story short, someone in the local community asked a local hobby shop if they would carry Games Workshop stuff since the last store that did went bust. (Small town, about 20k people)

They agreed, and unfortunately, the guy didn't tell them what kind of products they should carry and they just got a "default" package of product.

This package is, to put it blunty, garbage.

First of all, nobody, not a living soul, not even one person here, plays Age of Sigmar. About 50% of everything they got was Age of Sigmar. And most of it was trees. Those sylvaneth terrain boxes. Three of the things.

Secondly, the only terrain Games Workshop sent to this store, is the garbage putrescent nobody-cares Sector Mechanicus BS. No Ryza ruins. No Sector Administratum. Nothing that anyone would like to waste time to glue, paint, and play on. But they sent the one terrain type nobody likes, and they sent a LOT. Three of the big huge boxes and many smaller individual ones.

There's also four "anniversary edition" Primaris Lieutenants. The one with the bolter. There's one Space Marine player and not even he bought one.

A small paint rack with only greens and reds. Ork player was happy. Space Marine player happens to play Dark Angels, so win for him too. Three contrast paints, Iyanden Yellow and two types of red.

MOTHER FLIPPING 18 - EIGHTEEN - PAINTING HANDLES

And you know those scam paint sets with the tiny itty bitty paint pots in them? TONS.

Outdated Start Collecting boxes from factions nobody plays, except the Necron player got two of the ones with the Triarch Stalker which apparently was good news for him as he doesn't want the new one. There is a Tau player (me) but the Start Collecting box for Tau is crap once you have enough Fire Warriors and - ugh - crisis suits. HEY GW: Here's a good Start Collecting box for Tau - 2x6 Stealth Suits, a Ghostkeel and a Coldstar! Then you make Stealth Suits troops which they should have been for 17 years!!!!

Books we already had. By now outdated in most cases. (This inventory arrived in november 2017)

NO KILL TEAM STUFF AT ALL (but there's a Warcry starter set nobody wants, of course!)

You know what, it'll probably easier to list all the things anyone actually wanted:

Tau Commander
Tau Stealth Suits
Hellblaster large and small box
IG Heavy Weapons squad (ONE)
IG easy to build Cadians
Aforementioned Necron Start Collecting box
Shadowspear (score me! - only one copy though)

So they're like £2000 in the hole and have £335 to show for it.

So what you're saying is that your store asked to stock GW stuff and didn't give ANY insight into what the local market wanted.

As a result they got a generally 50/50 spread of GW's two major product lines. With a lot of introduction material for new gamers - books, start collecting sets, painting sets etc...

Alongside that they got a load of generic terrain (those "age of sigmar trees" also work very well for 40K) and accessories (painting handles do sell really well in general - many people use multiple ones). Accessories are also a high profit margin product so of course they are going to get them.




So one aspect is that your store didn't study their estabilshed market to get a handle on what would be good to get for a first order.

However the other aspect is that surely you realise that the store isn't just getting GW stuff for you and your friends. It's getting it to grow the local scene; to get NEW people into the hobby and introduce them alongside what is already there.

Furthermore now that they are part of GW's chain surely this is all a moot point because you and your friends can walk into the store today - place a selection of specific orders for things YOU want and then your store can get them from GW as part of the regular order.


So surely this is just you having to spend a week or two waiting for a GW order to arrive at your store whilst you and your friends now support it more so because they are stocking GW product.
At the same time your store is now ideally poised for you to help recruit new players for the game as there are books, getting started sets, getting started painting sets and everything they need to get stuck in.


Honestly doesn't sound that bad .

This sounds like a very specific problem for you... AoS makes up a significant portion of the Warhammer community, so 50% of the product your local got sounds about right.

The sector Mechanicus terrain is an excellent set too and I've honestly never heard anyone have issue with it before... Are the ryza ruins a highly desired terrain piece? Honestly never even
considered them to be a mainstay in the GW terrain repertoire.

It's also highly unusual to have only 1 marine player in town. Is it presumptuous to assume that everyone that plays 40k is in your group?

It is disappointing about your paint rack though. My own local hobby shop, in a town a bit smaller somehow had a fully stocked rack with every GW paint and spray which is incredibly convenient.

Like yours though, they also have a random selection of starter kits and old sets which does mean you find the occasional gem, but usually just leaves me ordering what I want online.
It is disappointing about the paints

 Overread wrote:
Alongside that they got a load of generic terrain

The hatred for the sector mechanicus stuff is pretty universal. They purely sent it because it's not selling. There's a reason the new Kill Team starter set moves 2000% slower than the old one, sure Reivers and Fire Warriors are not what any SM or Tau player wants for Kill Team, but the terrain is the worst part. Absolutely never have I heard of a single person liking that terrain. And indeed, looking at other Norwegian webstores, this terrain is 6+ in stock for every piece, while Sector Administratum and Basilica is sold out. Ryza ruins are in stock, but much fewer. GW needs to do a recall on the Sector Mechanicus terrain, melt it, and use that plastic for good, not evil.

I like that terrain, so I guess you've heard of someone now

LoftyS wrote:
Absolutely never have I heard of a single person liking that terrain.

I love it.

 Sentineil wrote:
I like that terrain, so I guess you've heard of someone now

Tell me more of how amazing it is to have your battles limited to like 50 planets in the imperium. At least with the real buildings, your battle can take place on millions of planets in any sector. But there aren't that many forge worlds. And that's beside the point of the aesthetics, it looks poorly thought out, the integration of individual pieces is non-existent, and the mechanical design makes little sense.

For example, have you noticed there are only exhaust fans? Even in pieces with two fans in opposite ends, both are exhaust.

It doesn't have to be a forgeworld... It's just industrial buildings and pipes... And the kit is hugely customisable, fits together really well, and can be magnetised easily to chop and change out bits as you go.

The Sector terrain is great too, but you might need to realise that you're wildly conflating personal opinion with fact.

What you think of the terrain doesn't actually matter.

Clearly lots of others like it (heck I'd be buying it if I were building terrain for necromunda or 40K); and its a very good generic terrain feature for many Imperial worlds and battlefields.


You seem to think that GW would only sell what advanced gamers wanted in a generic start-up package for a store taking on their product. That's bonkers.

A store that doesn't send in any kind of pre-designed order looking to start stocking GW's product line for the first time is 100% going to get start-up products. Based on the assumption that they are STARTING 40K/AoS support in their area and thus looking to grow their customerbase.
Furthermore more advanced gamers have very specific requirements, likes and desires. GW is never going to know what YOU or your friends want or need or desire unless you tell your store manager and they tell GW.

You say they are £2K invested into it - hoenstly that's not all that much for GW products. If you've a healthy local club and interest and if you're all interested in supporting your local store you'll easily make up more in your own orders to the shop. Plus new gamers will start eating into that £2K. Those start painting sets; heck those start collecting sets might interest you one day when you want to change armies.

I had to look up the conversion, that's about $2600 US. I think I've bought more than that in Space Marines alone in the last year.

Walks into a wall of ridiculous expectations.

You’ll probably find that, GW, being a business in the business of making money, have likely sent him up their top selling stuff? No point stiffing a new outlet with known slow sellers, as you’ll only make that one sale.

Next time, why not try telling your FLGS what you want in the first place?

And please. Don’t say Sector Mechanicus is crap. It’s awesome stuff.

I love the Sector Mechanicus terrain. I personally like it because it creates a more interesting layout. I've never heard anyone complaining about it btw.

LoftyS wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Alongside that they got a load of generic terrain

The hatred for the sector mechanicus stuff is pretty universal.

And by universal you mean in Norway?
Or did the players here in my corner of the universe just not get the memo?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LoftyS wrote:

 Sentineil wrote:
I like that terrain, so I guess you've heard of someone now

Tell me more of how amazing it is to have your battles limited to like 50 planets in the imperium. At least with the real buildings, your battle can take place on millions of planets in any sector. But there aren't that many forge worlds.

1) Don't know.
We've never had this problem here. Our imaginations aren't stunted into thinking our terrain collections have to represent only specific (Imperial) planets because the box says _____.

2) For many editions GW wasn't in the terrain making business. That didn't stop us from having terrain.

So.... in summery, you told your FLGS to order GW stuff, he does so, GW then sends him the standard package they'll send anyone who is just starting a mix of their various products for their two primary game systems. you provided no details as to what specificly you wanted, you just "wanted him to start stocking GW stuff" I'm guessing he didn't ask what armies where being played locally? what games specificly you wanted (for example you specificly want kill team)

this isn't GWs problem. Doing market research for his specific market is not GW's job. thats your FLGS manager's job.

From what I have talked with the store owner of our flgs that stocks 40k GW has been pretty good to him. They get a budget every year for free terrain for the store from GW and they have great margins on the models and tools.

The sector mechanicus terrain is pretty nice looking, while it might not fit every scenario narratively it is great for most games.

LoftyS wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Alongside that they got a load of generic terrain

The hatred for the sector mechanicus stuff is pretty universal.

First I'm hearing about it, I personally love the stuff (own a couple thousand USD worth of it myself at this point), and all three of the stores local to me use a ton of it on their tables - I've never heard a single player complain about it once, ever.

I actually agree with the OP on the mechanicus terrain. There are things that mechanically don't make sense, or look like they "work." My biggest gripes though are the sparse railings and the several different styles of grate on the walkways. Why couldn't they provide enough railings to cover all the edges? Why do there need to be 3 different patterns on the walkways?

I have NEVER heard of anyone not liking Sector Mechanicus, which -newsflash - does not have to be a forgeworld

123ply wrote:
I have NEVER heard of anyone not liking Sector Mechanicus, which -newsflash - does not have to be a forgeworld

No, they don't have to represent a forge world, but the architecture is clearly human.

unfortunately, the guy didn't tell them what kind of products they should carry and they just got a "default" package of product. 

This package is, to put it blunty, garbage. 

First of all, nobody, not a living soul, not even one person here, plays Age of Sigmar. About 50% of everything they got was Age of Sigmar. And most of it was trees. Those sylvaneth terrain boxes. Three of the things. 

Ultimately this is the problem, and it's kind of hard to argue past it. If you ask a relative for "some warhammer stuff" for Christmas and provide no further guidance, you're going to get either a space marine, a stormcast, or whatever came out that week, each of which has a negligible chance of being anything you actually want.

I'm not saying the bundle you got isn't garbage for your local area, but investing £2000 without providing any guidance as to content, you have to admit, was kinda dumb.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

LoftyS wrote:
Absolutely never have I heard of a single person liking that terrain.

I love it.

I do not love it, But i think its GWs best offering for terrain, So its kinda news to me no one likes it. I think for me its the price way to much for its usefullness myself.

But sounds like a store that needed to chat with there groups a bit more, when we had to deal with GW it was a huge pain. Was hard to get things we would sell and things would just turn up that we could not refuse if we wanted some things.
It was crazy at times, this was more during the last era of the company so i wonder how much they could have changed in that time.

I also think the 2000 is fairly reasonable for a starter package for a store, SO i agree with what others has said about it there. Assuming now that the store can take orders, and your group does support them i am not thinking this is that bad.

GW gave the store the average kit to get new people into the game, help others along the way, and help fellow hobbyists with tools. OP sounds like they just wanted the stuff they and their friends needed and I am sitting here wondering: Why didn't you guys just do a Direct Order instead of having a "store" get "store" stuff? Going by the list of stuff your team actually wanted a Direct Order would have been a much sounder plan. I mean, in no universe is a "default package" going to be close to what you guys wanted.

By the way, that Warcry starter set is hot stuff. Sold out in a lot of places and my FLGS was never able to order boxes beyond the original release so maybe your hobby guy can ebay it.

But sounds like a store that needed to chat with there groups a bit more, when we had to deal with GW it was a huge pain. Was hard to get things we would sell and things would just turn up that we could not refuse if we wanted some things.
It was crazy at times, this was more during the last era of the company so i wonder how much they could have changed in that time.

GW still insists on stocking some core products. My FLGS had to order the LotR box even if the scene is dead here. Good for me though since I always wanted a box. I think GW's biggest problem for FLGS is the amount of stuff that is in DO and they can't get a retail discount on and the fact that some products sell so quickly they are never able to restock it or expand the player base properly, such as with the Warcry starter. Hit big when it came but it has become harder to get more people into it as there are no fancy big box to sell to people.

I honestly dont understand how some small local games store thinks it is a good Idea to offer GW stuff outside of maybe paint.

The established online retailers will always offer a larger range while being substantially cheaper. I'd never go to a Game Store to browse for stuff I want because they most probably wont have it anyways. I also never bought Something I didnt plan on buying beforehand. I suppose the majority of Players acts like this because they play a specific army and want specific units to go with that Army.

If you're not running a well known and established Store with a good online shop you'll always fail with that kind of stuff nowadays. Local Game Stores tend not to live too long because of that. I dont get why you convinced that poor store owner to do that. It was bound to go wrong from the beginning.

Not sure about other places in the world, but we have stuff like that too. Our store has to order stuff that does not sell ever to get the stuff that does sell. They often can't order extra of most items, but when it is something like the big boxs of eldar or space marines vs deathguard GW reps start from some mind blowing high number as if everyone at the store were to buy one. They link AoS stuff with w40k, or other games, and there are like 5 people playing AoS here, and they all buy their stuff online or bought it in WFB times. So we often have problems with ordering stuff. Which often ends up with people buying recasts or stuff online, and the store loses money. They also have some crazy rules about how GW stuff is suppose to be presented, and what other company stuff can be show or sold at the store. Our store owner rants about it all the time. For example when the marine tanks came out, he wanted to order a lot of them, because a ton of people wanted to run 2-3 of them. GW let him order 3 or 5, and if he wanted to get more he would have to stack up on dark empires etc. He was very vocal and angry about it for months. Because all the people that said they wanted 2-3 of the tanks, actually did buy 2-3 of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Walks into a wall of ridiculous expectations.

You’ll probably find that, GW, being a business in the business of making money, have likely sent him up their top selling stuff? No point stiffing a new outlet with known slow sellers, as you’ll only make that one sale.

Well the thing is, something that sells well in UK, where maybe everyone loves ugly DG, so having 30 boxs of dark empire isn't a problem to sell, may not be an item of choice for other places in the world. Or give has great results with AoS in UK and US, but in your part of the world 9th age is played the most, so being forced to stack up on stormcast is bad for stores, as they will never sell the boxs and starter sets.

The hobby scene here in Hanoi absolutely depends on our friendly local game store, as they are the only ones with the competence to deal with the impossibly demanding customs people here. Without our store, the hobby here would perish, and from what I can tell, Games-Workshop works pretty flexibly with them. I've not seen them force any unwanted stuff on the store, and the owner seems to be able to order as much or as little as needed without any hassle.

Morkphoiz wrote:
I honestly dont understand how some small local games store thinks it is a good Idea to offer GW stuff outside of maybe paint.

The established online retailers will always offer a larger range while being substantially cheaper. I'd never go to a Game Store to browse for stuff I want because they most probably wont have it anyways. I also never bought Something I didnt plan on buying beforehand. I suppose the majority of Players acts like this because they play a specific army and want specific units to go with that Army.

If you're not running a well known and established Store with a good online shop you'll always fail with that kind of stuff nowadays. Local Game Stores tend not to live too long because of that. I dont get why you convinced that poor store owner to do that. It was bound to go wrong from the beginning.

We did not really have any issue competing with online stores, GW was just a huge roadblock. Dealing with them is where the issues where for us.
The big thing that surprise me is how little space marines sold considering how much they had sent, We where left with huge piles of Marines that GW did not want back and it all went up on Ebay.

Some of the stock issues might well be because GW has been under-producing for their demand. The new factory and warehousing systems they've invested into should be coming online in the new year (certainly the factory I think is coming online "soon"). So that would likely help out a lot with shipping out larger quantities whilst increased storage means they can produce and store and distribute more. It should help out some regional areas which tend to suffer from having reduce stock of certain products.

As for having to stock some core products even though there's no local demand - I'm guessing that is GW's way of encouraging local demand to have a chance. Ergo if there's no AoS players in your area, but the store "has" to stock some AoS starter kits and such then there's some pressure on the store owner to market that AoS stuff and perhaps get people into it and get the ball rolling.

Ergo GW is putting some pressure on the store to drum up interest for their products outside of just what the local scene demands. This is a good thing if the store has the right attitude (and time/resources/training/experience) because it means that GW is trying to grow the local scene in numbers and diversity.



It's basically a positive move and using the store more than just a local depo for the established fanbase to shop from. GW doesn't want to just service current customers, they want to grow their market.

Good luck trying to make AoS popular in areas where WFB at times was more popular then w40k. Plus it is not just models. To get the new type of paints, not an expert as I don't paint models, they store would have to order old type of paints too. But here everyone uses valejo paints.

It is not positive at all, and it actualy has a determinetal effect on the hobby growth. Because either the store has to trick people in to buying un popular or bad stuff, or there is not enough products for everyone to go around, and not everyone is going to order their stuff online, and even if they do the store gains nothing from it. There were a few people in my area that went on to play historicals and infinity, because they couldn't buy their optimal list. And those were people with actual money, that could have spend 800-900$ on an army. Instead the store has buckets full of dark empire that will never sell.


And this is just regular stuff. GW also seems to treat store in my country as, if we were not in the EU. The stuff is often late by a month, or more if it is popular stuff. Or they send the stuff the store had to buy extra to get the items, but not the items themselfs. Send they will send them with next shipment, and next shipment they say they are out of stock.
And while it may seem great for some that, my store still has 3-4 of a lot of the limited edition models like the SoB or the primaris captins, it matters little if we still have not been sent our PA1-2 books.

Having been waiting for an order to leave Poland for over 2 weeks I wonder if the issue isn't GW but Polish customs and imports delaying things.

GW can't delay their entire release schedule for a country that lags behind others.


As for making AoS popular - remember - gamer populations are not static. New people come in all the time. So if the previous players only want Old World fantasy (which means they'd still be buying a good chunk of Gw's current AoS models as they are old world); there's nothing to stop the store getting new people in to play different games.

LoftyS wrote:
Long story short, someone in the local community asked a local hobby shop if they would carry Games Workshop stuff since the last store that did went bust. (Small town, about 20k people)

They agreed, and unfortunately, the guy didn't tell them what kind of products they should carry and they just got a "default" package of product.

This package is, to put it blunty, garbage.

First of all, nobody, not a living soul, not even one person here, plays Age of Sigmar. About 50% of everything they got was Age of Sigmar. And most of it was trees. Those sylvaneth terrain boxes. Three of the things.

Secondly, the only terrain Games Workshop sent to this store, is the garbage putrescent nobody-cares Sector Mechanicus BS. No Ryza ruins. No Sector Administratum. Nothing that anyone would like to waste time to glue, paint, and play on. But they sent the one terrain type nobody likes, and they sent a LOT. Three of the big huge boxes and many smaller individual ones.

There's also four "anniversary edition" Primaris Lieutenants. The one with the bolter. There's one Space Marine player and not even he bought one.

A small paint rack with only greens and reds. Ork player was happy. Space Marine player happens to play Dark Angels, so win for him too. Three contrast paints, Iyanden Yellow and two types of red.

MOTHER FLIPPING 18 - EIGHTEEN - PAINTING HANDLES

And you know those scam paint sets with the tiny itty bitty paint pots in them? TONS.

Outdated Start Collecting boxes from factions nobody plays, except the Necron player got two of the ones with the Triarch Stalker which apparently was good news for him as he doesn't want the new one. There is a Tau player (me) but the Start Collecting box for Tau is crap once you have enough Fire Warriors and - ugh - crisis suits. HEY GW: Here's a good Start Collecting box for Tau - 2x6 Stealth Suits, a Ghostkeel and a Coldstar! Then you make Stealth Suits troops which they should have been for 17 years!!!!

Books we already had. By now outdated in most cases. (This inventory arrived in november 2017)

NO KILL TEAM STUFF AT ALL (but there's a Warcry starter set nobody wants, of course!)

You know what, it'll probably easier to list all the things anyone actually wanted:

Tau Commander
Tau Stealth Suits
Hellblaster large and small box
IG Heavy Weapons squad (ONE)
IG easy to build Cadians
Aforementioned Necron Start Collecting box
Shadowspear (score me! - only one copy though)

So they're like £2000 in the hole and have £335 to show for it.

Novel idea, crack open a sigmar start box, get the regulars to paint it up, use it as a demo kit and see if anyone wants to start collecting sigmar? Sure nobody plays it now but they might once they experience it.