Kill Team Kill Team Soulshackle

[MithrilForge]

On 2/12/2023 at 12:29 AM, Redcomet said:

Ah yes. GW have maliciously decided to not have enough stock to meet demand. 

I wouldn't say malicious ..but your not far wrong, they seem to be producing a set amount and moving on to the next thing, they seem happy to not need to produce enough foe everyone that want's stock... Their FOMO selling looks good on paper... we produced "this many" items and they all "sold out" quickly, and we profited without holding excess stock in warehousing etc etc. costs are minimal and profits are high... what every greedy shareholder loves to read in their update .

 

as others have said, eventually people will get fed up with not getting stock of their favourite game or don't want to pay scalper prices online and get to the point where they look elsewhere for a new game... 

 

M  

[Lord_Ikka]

Goonhammer has an excellent rundown of what happened to Gorkamorka here that may somewhat help people make inferences into how/why GW produces their boxed sets and why they may be doing smaller production runs on boxed games like Killteam now, after certain boxes didn't sell well. The second part of the article, here, does a great job of explaining how GW turned into a sales-driven force and then had a near disaster with over-producing/non-selling boxes that probably have an institutional impact even now twenty years later. To put it short, GW gets nervous when their boxed sets don't sell, so they decide to cut the number of the next boxed sets to make sure that they don't have a constant bunch of boxes sitting on shelves. The idea that they are artificially cutting back on the supply to increase FOMO could definitely be part of the issue, but the institutional fear of another Gorkamorka International debacle may also play a large part in how they view stuff like Killteam. 

[lhg033]

Goonhammer article is interesting. I was very much in the same boat that I didn't really notice that GorkaMorka had stopped being supported, I was too busy playing it and didnt really need anything else for it, other than bitz now and then. The main difference here for me though is that I had no issues getting GorkaMorka. Several of my friends picked up copies of this over a couple of months and we spent most of the spring/summer playing this. It hadn't sold out in a few hours and was then just gone for the general hobbyist.

 

More than many other releases I feel cheated out of the chance to get this one. I don't think it was marketed (unless I missed it) as a limited run and would have fully expected to at least be able to buy it online for a little while, at least until closer to the next kill team box release. 

I'm back to seriously considering a 3d printer over continuing to (try and) spend on GW and just going a different way with my hobbying. 

[Halandaar]

While I appreciate that sets not marked as having limited availability selling out very quickly is frustrating (I've been hit by it myself more than a few times), it's something that's been going on regularly at least as far back as 2020 and affected everything from Edition starter sets like Indomitus, battleboxes, previous Kill Team sets, and other boxed games. Why are we still surprised by it?

 

Whether it stems from intentional FOMO marketing, an over-abundance of caution by GW, their failure to predict demand correctly or even repeated and extensive scalping of in-demand sets, the outcome is the same - If you want a big box, you need to be on the spot and ready to get one the moment those pre-orders go up, or risk missing out altogether. 

At this point, assuming that anything which isn't a standalone kit will be readily available even a few days after release seems unwise.

 

Does it suck? Yes. But is it the reality of GW releases? Also yes. I'm already squirreling away money for the next Kill Team set because I know that if GW drops it in a financially inconvenient week and I can't afford it there and then, I won't be able to get one later. (And for anyone wanting to point to that as proof it works as a marketing method, it's preventing me from buying other GW products in the meantime when I would otherwise buy both)

[lhg033]

It isn't a surprise but I am pretty fed up with it to be honest and am clearly not the only one.

I feel more than before this is hurting GWs reputation and driving people away whereas these sort of releases would normally be where you try and snag or renew peoples interest in a game system. There is a "Good job GW" thread going and I fully support that, they do have some fantastic points to praise but this is where they fall down a lot in my eyes.

 

At least with Indomitus and Kill team 2.0 they did a mto option. In fact both of these were available quite a while after release. They've done this for some limited edition individual models too.

[skylerboodie]

Especially when they'll rerelease all the bits at a combined huge increase (eg: £22.50 for individual sprue of new terrain bitz, book £27.50; as per Shadowvaults) on a longer term availability basis

Edited February 13, 2023 by skylerboodie
typo

[Halandaar]

For sure, honestly most of the reason I spring for big boxes at all is the savings they offer, not the early availability. I begrudge paying the full standalone price for anything if I don't have to.

[Phantomworks]

Why not continue with made to order approach... Order by certain date to get your order locked in.. They did it before...

 

But no.... 

 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Phantomworks

[Toxichobbit]

Another thing that is exasperating this is bits resellers. I just checked Bits & Kits in the UK and they have 36 of the Drukhari Kill Team in stock. So that's at least 36 copies of Soulshackle been bought up from various LGS/GW webstore by one reseller, as I'm pretty sure GW won't sell to bits resellers. When you consider all the other bits stores out there, I imagine it's probably having a significant impact. I don't mind bits sellers normally, but when they're buying up large chunks of limited stock like this to split and flip at a profit, I'm not sure what the difference is between them and scalpers.

Edited February 13, 2023 by Toxichobbit

[Halandaar]

Just now, Toxichobbit said:

Another thing that is exasperating this is bits resellers. I just checked Bits & Kits in the UK and they have 36 of the Drukhari Kill Team in stock. So that's at least 36 copies of Soulshackle been bought up by one reseller, as I'm pretty sure GW won't sell to bits resellers. When you consider all the other bits stores out there, I imagine it's probably having a significant impact. I don't mind bits sellers normally, but when they're buying up large chunks of limited stock like this to split and flip at a profit, I'm not sure what the difference is between them and scalpers.

 

I feel like a lot of these sorts of bits businesses must be side operations of LGS. I know GW's terms prohibit trade accounts from breaking down boxes, but it doesn't prohibit them from selling 36 boxes at cost to the owner or the owner's mate, who then puts them into the bits business.

 

The worst part is it's almost tempting to buy the Drukhari team from B&K because the £35 they want for it is almost certainly no worse than the standalone price GW will charge. But i'm going to hold on and see how low the scalpers on eBay will drop in order to shift them, because i'm thinking the demand for those is going to be way lower than the demand for Arbites.

 

 

[Toxichobbit]

1 minute ago, Halandaar said:

 

I feel like a lot of these sorts of bits businesses must be side operations of LGS. I know GW's terms prohibit trade accounts from breaking down boxes, but it doesn't prohibit them from selling 36 boxes at cost to the owner or the owner's mate, who then puts them into the bits business.

 

The worst part is it's almost tempting to buy the Drukhari team from B&K because the £35 they want for it is almost certainly no worse than the standalone price GW will charge. But i'm going to hold on and see how low the scalpers on eBay will drop in order to shift them, because i'm thinking the demand for those is going to be way lower than the demand for Arbites.

 

 

 

Possibly. If it's a trade account ordering extra and splitting them, I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse. 

 

I was tempted too. I have got a set on pre-order (which may or may not be fulfilled) but I'm not hugely fussed about getting a chunk of it anytime soon. The main thing I want is actually the terrain, specifically the breachable walls and mini-me Kill Team table. Picking that one sprue up separately and then ignoring the rest was tempting, but then I'd just be feeding the problem.

[Halandaar]

4 minutes ago, Toxichobbit said:

Possibly. If it's a trade account ordering extra and splitting them, I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse. 

 

Worse for sure, the sets should be available for customers to buy, not being preemptively taken off the shelves by people who aren't having to compete for the product so they can make even more profit from those of us who they denied from paying face value.

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

7 hours ago, Halandaar said:

While I appreciate that sets not marked as having limited availability selling out very quickly is frustrating (I've been hit by it myself more than a few times), it's something that's been going on regularly at least as far back as 2020 and affected everything from Edition starter sets like Indomitus, battleboxes, previous Kill Team sets, and other boxed games. Why are we still surprised by it?

 

I don't think anyone's surprised, just annoyed. 

[Noserenda]

I was still ordering for my LGS when they first started cracking down on bits resellers and "bedroom LGS" and they essentially made it so you had to prove you had an actual shop to get a trade account and it tiered from there (In ot ways) i heard from a peer at the time who was doing a bit of bits selling on the time that a lot of them just switched to ordering normally from other shops or GW direct and passed on the costs to customers, certainly seemed like bits went up quite a bit at one point but that was after my shop went under somewhat afaik so it might just be general price rises.

They do still ban bits sellers when they find them but there are lots of ways of buying indirectly, so itll never stop entirely.

Its a shame because its a useful service when you are a habitual kit basher like me, i was spoilt growing up with the old GW bits service and while i understand they cant do that today it would be nice for GW to partner up with someone doing it, get them stuff direct and perhaps reuse partially damaged sprues or stuff they write off internally.

Probably too late now with 3d prints being so handy though.

[Zoatibix]

EBay UK has fifty three copies of Soulshackle going for £299 at the time of writing. 

[skylerboodie]

48 minutes ago, Zoatibix said:

EBay UK has fifty three copies of Soulshackle going for £299 at the time of writing. 

Even worse, it's all from one seller! GW should really be able to stop this and ban the seller (/seller's partner or whatever) from receiving any more trade stock.

[Flaherty]

The weirdest thing is how GW hasn't really struggled with producing enough boxes over the last 12-18 months. They had solved the problem and almost every splash release was available for months at discounters. It's only been Shadowvault, Soulshackle, and the Balefleet battleforce that sold out instantly.

 

My theory/hope is that this spate of shortages is driven by manufacturing time being devoted to 10th edition. If it really is going to launch in June, they'd need to have been producing a lot over the last few months to fill launch boxes, starter sets, promotional models, etc. That would have limited how much machine time could be devoted to splash releases, reprints, etc. It will be telling how these releases sell following the next edition. Are we stuck with systemic scalping or do they return to plentiful production?

[Hfran Morkai]

Well with this being unavailable I'm seriously considering picking up the special terrain gubbinz from a reseller (which I guess shamelessly reinforces this behaviour) or waiting and hoping they release them like they are the Shadowvaults one.

 

 

 

 

 

[Toxichobbit]

9 hours ago, skylerboodie said:

Even worse, it's all from one seller! GW should really be able to stop this and ban the seller (/seller's partner or whatever) from receiving any more trade stock.

 

They can't do anything if they don't know. And even if they do know, it could be one legit trade account ordering them and someone they know selling them, meaning there might be no link that GW can find. And that's if it's worth them doing anything in the first place. GW get the sales either way.

 

The only real way to combat scalpers is to reduce scarcity so there is nothing for them to profit from, but GW are either unwilling to do this or would rather get a guaranteed sell out box set at the expense of their customers.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Toxichobbit

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

Didn't they end up making a made-to-order concession on a few boxes a while ago that sold out too fast?  I guess they only do that if enough people complain loudly enough. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

With the 9th edition launch box didn't they make a bunch and then had them made to order too so everyone wins? GW doesn't over produce and everyone who wanted one got one (maybe a bit late, but better late than never). That seems to be the best model in my opinion. GW wins, customers win and scalpers lose. 

[Toxichobbit]

Yeah, they did with 9th ed. They also did it with the two Cursed City expansions which both sold out within minutes. The problem is, they drag their feet sometimes about whether to do it or not, so the scalpers get to rip a load of people off and then GW twist the knife by putting them MTO. They should really be announcing if something is going to be MTO ASAP so scalpers are the ones loosing out, not customers. Unfortunately, they never do, and in some cases they've sold out of stuff then brought it back as MTO months later.

 

But yeah, I do agree, doing stuff like this as initial run + MTO would be better for everybody (except scalpers, but  those ) 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Toxichobbit

[Lord Marshal]

There's an argument that scalpers and people afraid of missing out really were buying up lots of boxes, because everything they ran Made-To-Order on had plenty of easily obtainable stock for a while thereafter; Kill Team '21, Dominion, Black Templars, even the Cursed City re-release.

 

With MTO the scalpers had no incentive to buy up dozens of boxes and FOMO was kept in greater check. As a result it might not have been flying off the shelves. You can still find Octarius and Black Templar Army Sets without too much difficulty, or at least you could until recently. Everybody knows how Dominion went (selling fast!)

 

Was it overproduction just-in-case or were scalpers buying up so much of that stock in the first place? Probably a bit of both, that's my guess at least. Cadia Stands(!) still being easy to get hold of does make me wonder if it's production though - it's no secret Guard are a popular army, but you can still find boxes of it very easily. Similarly I doubt scalpers were buying up 30k Jetbikes but those are also hard to come by.

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Lord Marshal

[Beaky Brigade]

I think the different Gallowdark kill team boxes have different levels of appeal. Kasrkin have been long anticipated and have a lot of fans, and the Arbities are excellent models bringing imperial justice back to the tabletop. People want them and its not surprising they sold out even though its hugely likely they'll be released individually later. 

 

The Navy vs Kroot box was available for a while. They are both great sculpts but have more of a niche appeal imo, so maybe that explains it? The terrain in each box set is comparable even though there are differences. 

 

Imo the dark eldar offering in soul shackle doesn't compare well to the new corsairs, so really I think people just want the Arbites and new terrain options. 

 

I imagine predicting demand for this stuff is voodoo science! 

 

[Halandaar]

9 hours ago, Lord Marshal said:

Was it overproduction just-in-case or were scalpers buying up so much of that stock in the first place? Probably a bit of both, that's my guess at least. Cadia Stands(!) still being easy to get hold of does make me wonder if it's production though - it's no secret Guard are a popular army, but you can still find boxes of it very easily. Similarly I doubt scalpers were buying up 30k Jetbikes but those are also hard to come by.

 

The problem we have is that it's impossible for us to make objective judgments because we simply don't have access to any numbers. They could have made half as many Cadia Stands boxes as they did Votann and the reason you can still get them is because the demand just wasn't there, despite our perception that Guard are popular and all that was holding it back was refreshed core models. Equally they might have made double as many Cadia Stands as they did Votann as a hedge against scalpers buying them all out and it turns out that was just way too many; either (or neither) of these scenarios could be true and we have no way of knowing.

 

The 9th Edition Starter box that started the whole Made to Order / Pre-Order Promise scheme is a real outlier in that GW did actually give us some context. After Indomitus sold out and GW had to react they told us they'd made more Indomitus sets for launch day than they made of Dark Imperium for it's entire 3 year run, and they still sold them all immediately.

 

GW often seem to get numbers wrong but I don't think any of us could have predicted that 9th Edition would sell as many copies in 1 weekend as 8th Edition did in 3 years.

 

7 hours ago, Beaky Brigade said:

The Navy vs Kroot box was available for a while. They are both great sculpts but have more of a niche appeal imo, so maybe that explains it? The terrain in each box set is comparable even though there are differences. 

 

Possibly, but we're presuming that GW printed equal quantities of each box in order to draw that conclusion, which might not be the case. Maybe they just made more because there was more production capacity available when they were making them. We're pretty much in the dark about all this stuff.