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Scarcity of Apocalypse Box Sets


ImperialTuba

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So I recently got my Space Marine army up to a total of about 2,000 points. Now I've been having thoughts of incorporating some Astra Militarum to have some glorious Leman Russ tanks and masses of infantry to use in battles alongside my Astartes. 

 

Naturally, I started thinking what would be the most affordable way to build up a new detachment from scratch. The Start Collecting and Apocalypse sets both caught my eye at first, and now that I've given it some thought, I'm feeling very drawn to the Spearhead detachment for the Astra Militarum.

 

However, this has all happened pretty fast, and as eager as I am to just order the box and be done with it, I feel like I should settle for what I've got at the moment. 

 

That brings me to my reason for making this post: Should I be worried that the Apocalypse boxes won't be around for long? I've heard it said that they're a sort of limited release. They seem like a great deal, so I don't want to miss out on it.  

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So I recently got my Space Marine army up to a total of about 2,000 points. Now I've been having thoughts of incorporating some Astra Militarum to have some glorious Leman Russ tanks and masses of infantry to use in battles alongside my Astartes. 

 

Naturally, I started thinking what would be the most affordable way to build up a new detachment from scratch. The Start Collecting and Apocalypse sets both caught my eye at first, and now that I've given it some thought, I'm feeling very drawn to the Spearhead detachment for the Astra Militarum.

 

However, this has all happened pretty fast, and as eager as I am to just order the box and be done with it, I feel like I should settle for what I've got at the moment. 

 

That brings me to my reason for making this post: Should I be worried that the Apocalypse boxes won't be around for long? I've heard it said that they're a sort of limited release. They seem like a great deal, so I don't want to miss out on it.  

They're already going out of stock, so..... If your local store has one, get it if you want it. Because as of right now the only ones still available on the GW website for the United States is the AdMech, Craftworlds, Orks and Necron ones.

Here in the UK four of the Apocalypse boxes are already out of stock online (Knights, Nids, Militarum and Tau), and they were never anything but 'limited stock'. If you're thinking about getting one, then you should really try to find one ASAP - especially the Militarum one, which in the UK sold out as quickly as the Knight box.

That's a shame if they don't have plans to restock them, especially the really popular ones. Seems like a great way to get people into the hobby. I'm still holding out hope that they'll keep producing them since they seem to be selling so well, and that they're just trying to create a sense of urgency for consumers. 

I just snapped up the Tyranid apoc box, and was very glad a local retailer still had in in stock. The space marine and IG sets are selling like hotcakes and the IG one in particular seems very hard to find. 

I'm actually surprised to hear that the Space Marine set is popular. I was pretty disappointed when I saw it, since it's mostly just a huge amount of Intercessors. Maybe that setup works for Apocalypse better than regular 40k, but I was hoping to see some Hellblasters, Aggressors and what not mixed in. Also thought they might take the opportunity to combine some older Space Marines with Primaris.  

That's a shame if they don't have plans to restock them, especially the really popular ones. Seems like a great way to get people into the hobby. I'm still holding out hope that they'll keep producing them since they seem to be selling so well, and that they're just trying to create a sense of urgency for consumers.

If past experience is anything to go by, these will not be restocked. GW do splash release bundles from time to time when they launch a new product or at Christmas but they rarely do the same one twice.

 

You may see other deals in future but these apocalypse boxes won't be around again for a while and your next chance at any kind of discount bundle is probably not going to be before Christmas.

I would like to see some sort of "Continue Collecting" boxes which expand on the SC boxes in a sensible way, ie no duplicate characters, the right balance of units to make viable detachments.

 

A lot of the Christmas Battleforces do seem to be put together that way, but these Apocalypse ones are a bit too niche for permanent addition to the range.

I'm cynical. I think it works like this:

 

Announce sets with discount over normal rrp that tie in with new rules etc.

People get excited at the newness and prospect of a decent discount.

Discounts put a positive light on GW's pricing for a change.

GW waits a while for optimum profit and discontinues the sets

Many people are still interested in starting the new project they had planned but now can no longer buy at the same discount so some end up paying the normal price.

 

The same thing seems to have happened several times before. It's a fact of business that sales are highest after a new release, so GW is doing the sensible (from a sales perspective) thing and generating some hype, some extra volume of sales, and then dropping the discount before the natural decline in sales means they start seeing a net reduction in the amount of money coming in for those products. It's also a great way to hype up models that are not new at all and shift old stock by repacking.

 

The same thing happened to me with Kill Team - there were a few sets that I wanted because I liked the idea of some terrain on the cheap and something different models to make and paint. By the time my hobby priorities shifted to actually looking to buy Kill Team, the sets I wanted were well out of the picture. In fairness, I probably had over a year to get it together and make a purchase in this particular example, but there has been a lot of other bundles I'm sure disappeared much faster.

 

By repeating this over time customers start to realise that if there is something they want and it's at a discounted price then they need to buy it straight away or risk losing out, creating a false sense of urgency over a luxury item. We all have hobby plans that we'd like to do if it were a bit cheaper, new armies we'd like to start etc. and a bundle like this is genuinely good in that regard but in my opinion the repeated short lived releases like this are actually bad for the consumer because it pushes you towards making a purchase. GW used to have a fairly rapid release schedule (I'm talking 10-15 years ago) where they would announce new releases a month in advance. The problem they had with this was people would get excited for the new releases but would save their money to see what the following month's releases were going to be. The current strategy seems to be the counter to this; buy now or pay more if you wait. Personally not something I'm a fan of.

 

I understand that things which don't sell need to be discontinued but limited and short lived releases like are not that and benefit the company more than the consumer. Given that we, the consumers, are the sole reason companies continue to exist, I think it's good to take a step back from time to time and think about whether they way they do business is actually in your best interest. There are plenty of people who will argue about pricing but I don't think enough people talk bout their business practices and how we are sold to.

 

TL;DR

 

You should be worried that the apocalypse boxes will disappear forever. They will disappear, though maybe will come back briefly at a later date before they go for good. However what I would encourage everyone to consider is the notion that GW is using the fear of missing out to push customers into making purchases they might not have otherwise have made.

Would have picked up the Knight one, I mean, my backlog would have only increased by 3 models. :P But that box was sold out so fast, that I didn't even get to see it. I was tempted by the Tau box, I still have the Tau I played in 5th and 6th but haven't been eager to play them recently. So I passed, a fact I will regret once I feel the urge to play them again.

  • 2 weeks later...

All the pressure got to me and I caved in and bought the box (Hooray for peer pressure and paranoia!). Got it off Amazon for $145 (USD). Checked back not to long after and the cheapest one I could find on there was about $170, so looks like I saved myself some trouble. Still assembling the units and looking forward to their first battle alongside my Astartes.

 

Thank you all for helping me come to another financially irresponsible choice in life! :biggrin.:

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