BSB Speculation

[ERJAK]

 

 

 

 

 

Its smart to release this box at the end of the year (the last week of November), then wait about 60-90 days for people who bought it to have more money before releasing new stuff for them to buy.

Not really. It's not like people would buy any less overall just because it was all released at once. All the other sets SHOULD be ready to go by now. Mind you, I'm not personally in a hurry, I don't have the money anyway and plenty of stuff waiting to be painted. Just that spacing things out artificially certainly doesn't benefit the players (like in this case it would mean the inability to buy core parts of the codex), and the only reason it'd benefit the company is if they want to pretty up the books. Personally I never understood what's so bad in sales being a bit uneven over the period of a financial year, as long as the total adds up. But then the whole economy never did make much sense.

Yes really.

 

I've worked in gaming retail forever. You want to stagger your release for something like this so that more customers can be exposed to it. You want the product to be released across multiple pay periods so your customers have multiple opportunities to buy even if they have a limited budget. You want your customers to be exited about it and buy it in month 1, and month 2 and month 3 and month 4. And more a year or two later when its time for wave 2.

 

Splash releases (releasing everything all at once) work well for something like a one off product (like Space Hulk) where theres no follow up product to buy and you want to shift your customers attention somewhere else a month later, or a limited edition box set that will be the start of a new product line that you can shift your customer's attention too (like this Sisters box). You WANT your customer hooked and coming back several months in a row (or several times over multiple months). What you absolutely don't want is customers buying your product all at once. Thats fine 6 months or two years after the product has launched, but you want to keep that initial excitement going for a many release months as possible.

 

This is beneficial for the customers too, for exactly the reasons you described. Not everyone is in a hurry. Not everyone has a lot of money set aside to buy a whole army at once. Not everyone has the time. People absolutely do tend to buy less when a product like a new army is released all at once (although certainly some big spenders buy everything in one go too). Very, very often if a customer feels like they can't afford it all, or don't have the time, they put off buying. Thats one of the reasons staggered releases work so well. Customers who didn't buy into the initial release get tempted again and again by later releases. Each new wave of releases, a month or two or three after the last reinforces the customers interest and tempts them to buy. Not only that, after several months of staggered releases the customer sees that this product isn't just a one and done splash release. Its something worth investing in with ongoing (or at least the illusion of ongoing) support.

 

Splash releases for entire armies aren't unheard of at all of course . But its MUCH more common for GW to stagger their releases over several months. Look at he new Chaos and Primaris releases this year for examples. Or death Guard and Primaris earlier this edition. Or Necrons and Eldar a few years ago.

What you're forgetting is that you could actually use the deathguard/space marine/eldar/necron/etc stuff as it came out. You didn't have to wait around for months because your basic troop kit isn't out yet.

 

The army in plastic is nonfunctional until at least battle sisters, 1 FA, 1 HQ, 1 HS, and 1 DT kit are out. Full kits that you can buy individually and actually equip properly and can triple up on. The box set is nice but building even an allied detachment would take 2 boxes minimum.

 

And none of that 'oh build a patrol!' nonsense. You'd be building a 430+ point 0CP detachment that would lose outright to 10 intercessors. That's not even usable in casual games. The only purpose that would serve is convincing people to not invest in sisters.

 

I'm not saying they need to drop everything in november, I'm saying that releasing a non-functional army and letting it continue to be non-functional loses a lot of people who buy for the game.

 

Oh, also you miss out on the start of the new ITC season as well as LVO and Adepticon. I doubt that's too crazy an amount of money but it's certainly 5 figures you just let slip away.

 

January is fine, february is pushing it, march is just silly.

[Slasher956]

So what’s stopping me using my 3.5k of sisters?

 

Your 10 intercessors are not a 500 point patrol and will lose to the sisters box on their own.... if you make a 500 point patrol formation of SMs against the new codex and lose 100 times out of 100 I’d say you have a point

 

However do we know they are going to be the same points and same rules as the beta?

 

You are moaning about the sky falling on your head because you can see the sky!

[Atrus]

Back on topic; haven't seen any BSB today. Guess the damage control one last week was it. Wonder if we'll see a new BSB next week or if we wait another 2 weeks to slot back into the normal schedule?

[tvih]

Splash releases for entire armies aren't unheard of at all of course . But its MUCH more common for GW to stagger their releases over several months. Look at he new Chaos and Primaris releases this year for examples. Or death Guard and Primaris earlier this edition. Or Necrons and Eldar a few years ago.

I wrote a whole border-wall of text but to spare y'all Ill just offer this still-long TL;DR version: Some may be put off by a splash, sure; others will be put off by the extra waiting. From my point of view as a consumer the staggered release - even with the situation I'm in as I detailed earlier - offers absolutely no benefit compared to a splash release. For example this particular initial boxed release alone serves a bit poorly both old players with metal minis (= probably have mostly what they need for playing already anyway and could just get the codex other than for the novelty of it) and new players (=not really useful for gaming on its own and buying multiples is a poor option). This release has been pined for by many for well over a decade. So let's just stretch it out as much as we can while we still can, that'll make everyone as happy as can be and oh-so-hooked

 

Maybe marketing gurus, accountants, retailers and other consumers and whoever else disagree, and of course they're free to do so, I sure as heck disagree with a lot of people about a lot of things and I'm not the Imperial Inquisition after all

[ThePenitentOne]

November WD will have kill team rules for sisters, which will give the box more of a purpose. I'd like to see a BSF character too, but that would be a lot of sisters in a month.

[ERJAK]

So what’s stopping me using my 3.5k of sisters?

 

Your 10 intercessors are not a 500 point patrol and will lose to the sisters box on their own.... if you make a 500 point patrol formation of SMs against the new codex and lose 100 times out of 100 I’d say you have a point

 

However do we know they are going to be the same points and same rules as the beta?

 

You are moaning about the sky falling on your head because you can see the sky!

I said plastic. Obviously if you have 3.5k of metals it wouldn't apply to you.

 

The point is that the army is nonfunctional for players that intend to field PLASTIC SISTERS, yunno, every person online who has spent the past ten years saying they like sisters but won't start the army until it's in plastic. No amount of running in on your high horse is going to change that.

 

Thank you for proving my point that people will fill in what they need with the metals which is functionally the same as 3d printing the models as far as GW's sales numbers are concerned.

 

And I'm sorry, 10 intercessors absolutely beat the entire box set. Stay 36" away, kill the arcos and repentia first turn, kill the seraphim when they drop in turn two, slowly plink away the rest of the force kiting them around the board. Once the pengine dies that's game over. You'd lose maybe 2 intercessors to the seraphim drop and another 1 to random bolter fire. The intercessors would have 2 shooting phases before even the bolters were in range. It is not a force that is feasible on its own. (Throw in a 150ish point smash captain and it becomes an abject slaughter despite being 100pts cheaper)

[Slasher956]

To be fair on the intercsssor v AS box.... never said board size or terrain...at 500 points I'd be playing on a 3' x 3' with a couple of large pieces of terrain and some smaller scatter.... where as you seem to want it to be on a 6' x 4' pool table with limited terrain.... (oh bolt rifles are range 30" so thats one shot before the girls are in range.. I'm not saying it'll be easy for the sisters but without putting models on the table I dont think it'll be as one sided as you say)

 

Now GW were NEVER going to release the whole range in one go*... they never did that even when the release the Tau back in 3rd.   IIRC that was a battalion box with a couple of other smaller boxs for the first couple of months..I do remember people saying then "I cant wait till X comes out, it looks awsome".. so why the moaning now?

 

As I've said before the other point is WHO are GW aiming this release at?  My take on it is the release its aimed at existing Sisters players & those who are wanting to collect for painting (so release schedule doesnt matter as much) or those who have been wanting sisters for a long time so a little more waiting isnt the end of the world.  You seem to be championing the 1 stop shopper, who buys an entire army in one go, and might paint it, play for a few months then moves on to the next. 

 

Now what I was saying about my collection is that the 'every person online' who wants plastic sisters ISNT only people who will only field a 100% plastic sisters army the moment the codex drops.

 

 

*the logistics of it would require GW to halt all other systems and factions for a period of time... not to mention the warehouse space required to build up the stock before release.....

[Slasher956]

On Topic!

 

Yeah thought that the PA story and the BSB on the arcos had been swapped round... next BSB I think will drop 28th and will be another filler one, this time on the box as a whole and what other stuff it contains 

[jakerichmond]

 

As I've said before the other point is WHO are GW aiming this release at?  My take on it is the release its aimed at existing Sisters players & those who are wanting to collect for painting (so release schedule doesnt matter as much) or those who have been wanting sisters for a long time so a little more waiting isnt the end of the world.  You seem to be championing the 1 stop shopper, who buys an entire army in one go, and might paint it, play for a few months then moves on to the next. 

 

You're right of course. GW has said multiple times that this release was for dedicated Sisters fans. 

 

Its probably better for people who feel like they need to buy an entire army in a single month before they lose interest to just ignore this release and wait till the army actually appears next year.

[ThePenitentOne]

Actually, I'm hoping for preorder on 26th. I know that's wishful thinking- it would be better financially if preorder weekend was the th- don't want rent getting in the way of 40k  :-D 

 

I might consider 2 boxes; with monopose, you don't want much more than that, buy I think I'll have enough of the new models that I can spread the monoposers around to diminish the clone effect. We'll see....

[Slasher956]

to be fair about mono pose... I dont have an issue with it... with 60ish bolter girls I have over 3 copies of each pose already and on the table it looks fine... I consider different heads as different poses for this statement!

[Slasher956]

So with the Salli rules being shown on WHC (+1 damage to flame weapons, warlord trait allowing re-rolls on the number of hits) what do we think THE faction everyone things about when talking of burning your opponents will get?

 

something like +1 hit per flamer, return of holy prometium rule (give us one of re-roll failed wounds, re-roll successful armour saves, ignores cover modifiers)

[Commander Dawnstar]

I'm not expecting Sisters to get anything akin to the rules that Marines are receiving. That's not to say it can't happen, I just see no reason to assume any kind of bespoke power boost outside of Acts of Faith and my expectations for the book's power level in general are pretty low after the Beta Codex.

 

Edit: Something I am interested in along these lines though is whether the Codex will contain Minor Order Convictions. At this time I wouldn't feel confident predicting them but it's certainly possible and that could be a source of some extra power and flexibility.

[ERJAK]

So with the Salli rules being shown on WHC (+1 damage to flame weapons, warlord trait allowing re-rolls on the number of hits) what do we think THE faction everyone things about when talking of burning your opponents will get?

 

something like +1 hit per flamer, return of holy prometium rule (give us one of re-roll failed wounds, re-roll successful armour saves, ignores cover modifiers)

If we don't have our own flamecraft strat, we can pretty much write the book off because they didn't even try.

[Ezr91aeL]

I'm not expecting Sisters to get anything akin to the rules that Marines are receiving. That's not to say it can't happen, I just see no reason to assume any kind of bespoke power boost outside of Acts of Faith and my expectations for the book's power level in general are pretty low after the Beta Codex.

 

Edit: Something I am interested in along these lines though is whether the Codex will contain Minor Order Convictions. At this time I wouldn't feel confident predicting them but it's certainly possible and that could be a source of some extra power and flexibility.

If I haven't understood badly they're doing exactly that with the Psychic Awakening, giving extra rules and customization to EVERY faction. So I don't see why not for sistah

[Slasher956]

 

I'm not expecting Sisters to get anything akin to the rules that Marines are receiving. That's not to say it can't happen, I just see no reason to assume any kind of bespoke power boost outside of Acts of Faith and my expectations for the book's power level in general are pretty low after the Beta Codex.

 

Edit: Something I am interested in along these lines though is whether the Codex will contain Minor Order Convictions. At this time I wouldn't feel confident predicting them but it's certainly possible and that could be a source of some extra power and flexibility.

 

If I haven't understood badly they're doing exactly that with the Psychic Awakening, giving extra rules and customization to EVERY faction. So I don't see why not for sistah

No they are giving SOMETHING to every faction, this could be rules, points (see ynnari), fluff or just a couple of new models.

 

Some factions don’t lend themselves to the 1001 sub factions that space marine chapters do... and when you think that until the beta dex we didn’t have rules for the major orders I doubt it they’ll give us rules for the minor ones now....in fact I’d rather they put the thought and energy into getting the acts right and giving us a codex that can stand up competitively in match play....

[Montford]

We just might get Ephrael Stern as a Character. She showed up in Psychic Awakening: Phoenix Rising (page 21) with her Aeldari buddy (Kyganil IIRC).

[taikishi]

So, it's already 7:05pm in the UK. How much do you want to bet we're not getting a BSB this week and how much do you want to bet the Arco-flagellent/Mistress of Repentance one is our last BSB?

[ERJAK]

So, it's already 7:05pm in the UK. How much do you want to bet we're not getting a BSB this week and how much do you want to bet the Arco-flagellent/Mistress of Repentance one is our last BSB?

I doubt it's the last one, but it was definitely supposed to have been out later than it was. The next BSB would have been NEXT Monday without the leaks interrupting the schedule.

[Slasher956]

I wasn’t expecting a BSB today, but I’m expecting a preorder one next week and another on the 11th giving us a few pictures of the none model stuff in the box. Then pre orders for 1 or 2 weeks then the last BSB on Monday 25th with 4 more days of previews before the release 30th Nov

[Montford]

This week's BSB may be rolled into the previews thet announced for this Thursday.

[ThePenitentOne]

There is a Fleur de Lis on the latest PA video; I haven't watched it with the sound, but the fact that they're already beginning the drive for the next PA release gives us some idea how fast they intend to release new stuff.

 

And the Fleur de Lis might mean we get a piece of this one. 

[tvih]

There really shouldn't be anything for us in PA, though. I mean beyond fluff relating to the events and whatnot, of course. The codex is just coming out - nothing rules-wise should be in an entirely different book so close to the release, that'd be just asinine... which is probably exactly why it'll happen.

[Atrus]

I was under the impression that there would be a BSB today; my math must have been wrong.

Doesn't bother me either way as I've finally decided that I'm not going to jump on the initial release for sisters.

Had an unexpected expense come in. Not much but had to dip into the funds I'd been saving for sisters. There's nothing thus far to get me excited for the release aside from the satisfaction of the girls finally being in plastic and being on the store shelves again.

 

More importantly, I'm coming up to a period where I'm not going to get to game.much for an unknown time and getting any next month would be a waste if money and space. I can come back maybe in a year or two when things have settled down and i can game again. By then we should hopefully have some cool NEW stuff.

[Montford]

There is a Fleur de Lis on the latest PA video; I haven't watched it with the sound, but the fact that they're already beginning the drive for the next PA release gives us some idea how fast they intend to release new stuff.

 

And the Fleur de Lis might mean we get a piece of this one. 

 

It might have to do with Sister of Battle Ephrael Stern ( a powerful psyker)  who appeared in the first Psychic Awakening book and spoke with Yvraine.