Kill Team Kill Team - Gallowfall (Terrain teased page 4)

[Lord Marshal]

It was up at 09:55. Gone by 10:00. Comical. 

 

I did a sweep of independents, but even ones you could find the odd Lion Guard box from when this happened the other week were already 'Sold Out/Unavailable'. I'm wondering if they even got any boxes at all. 

 

Weirdly it was 3-per customer, rather than 1-per customer. 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2023 by Lord Marshal

[Toxichobbit]

1 minute ago, Lord Marshal said:

It was up at 09:55. Gone by 10:00.

 

I did a sweep of independents, but even ones you could find the odd Lion Guard box from were already 'Sold Out/Unavailable'. I'm wondering if they even got any boxes at all.

 

Weirdly it was 3-per customer, rather than 1-per customer. 

 

It shouldn't be up until 10. Their pre-order is 10, not 09.55. I had it in my cart at 09.57 but by the time I got to checkout it was gone. Absolutely awful customer service from their website, as always. Sadly, the same thing will happen with the terrain when it comes out separately, it'll be gone within minutes & if you want to finish the season the only option will be eBay and the scalping  on there. I won't be buying into next season after the complete and utter catastrophe that this one has been. I'll spend my money with another games company instead.

[zarkkarn]

Well everywhere seems sold out, I know my go to retailer stated they only had 1 copy available so that was always a long shot but some of tje bigger online retailers seem to have sold out at 10 GW it appears released stocke arly on their site (brilliant) seems gamesworkshop are going out of their way to piss off the customer.

[Black Knight]

Only one store I looked at had it even show as available and that was gone before I clicked checkout. They all know that this is a :cuss show and don't even discount it now. Even a small store has bots checking out because no human has even the latency in their connection to order that fast.

Edited May 6, 2023 by Black Knight

[Toxichobbit]

Yep, every retailer I checked was sold out before it was even released, or haven't had any stock at all. It went from not appearing on their store to immediately sold out. And eBay is swarming with Gallowfall sets sold at a markup or broken up. And of course the influencers all have their sets. And the parts stores all have their sets.

 

I'm currently writing a complaint email to GW. I suggest other people do the same.

[silverstu]

Yeah had it in my cart at 9.58 by the time went through PayPal it was out of stock and the payment failed..incredibly frustrating, there must have been so little stock.

[Doobles57]

15 minutes ago, Toxichobbit said:

Yep, every retailer I checked was sold out before it was even released, or haven't had any stock at all. It went from not appearing on their store to immediately sold out. And eBay is swarming with Gallowfall sets sold at a markup or broken up. And of course the influencers all have their sets. And the parts stores all have their sets.

 

I'm currently writing a complaint email to GW. I suggest other people do the same.

Amazing how the same scalpers and parts stores never seem to fail to get any isn't it. Whole set up is a joke. 

I get that production is probably heavily pushed to Leviathan boxes ahead of 10th, but all the recent releases like this do not give me any confidence for that launch. 

[beefeb]

4TK Gaming in colchester have put up on their website that there were only 2 boxes sent out to each retailer....what the hell is happening at GW.....shareholders will start to get jittery at this rate.

 

 

but never mind, at least there was plenty to send out for free to all their social media influencers, to show us how lovely the sets that we cannot buy are!

Edited May 6, 2023 by beefeb

[Matcap86]

36 minutes ago, beefeb said:

4TK Gaming in colchester have put up on their website that there were only 2 boxes sent out to each retailer....what the hell is happening at GW.....shareholders will start to get jittery at this rate.

 

 

but never mind, at least there was plenty to send out for free to all their social media influencers, to show us how lovely the sets that we cannot buy are!

 

Yeah this type of promoting is starting to backfire bigtime imho. Yayyy medium level painter with an instagram account got sent this stuff ahead of time for free. How nice that I and their 10 other followers can see how they could've looked. 

[Matcap86]

59 minutes ago, Toxichobbit said:

Yep, every retailer I checked was sold out before it was even released, or haven't had any stock at all. It went from not appearing on their store to immediately sold out. And eBay is swarming with Gallowfall sets sold at a markup or broken up. And of course the influencers all have their sets. And the parts stores all have their sets.

 

I'm currently writing a complaint email to GW. I suggest other people do the same.

 

I mean, there's like 3-5 sets on ebay. You're right to be annoyed but lets not pretend that scalpers are the issue here, the woeful underproduction is. 

[Toxichobbit]

2 minutes ago, matcap86 said:

 

I mean, there's like 3-5 sets on ebay. You're right to be annoyed but lets not pretend that scalpers are the issue here, the woeful underproduction is. 

 

No, there's more than 3-5 sets. I've counted over 20 sets worth of stuff (either complete of broken up), and that's just within the first hour. More will go up over the next week. Scalpers are part of the problem and lets not pretend that they're not.

[ZeroWolf]

I think Kill Team fans were sacrificed on the altar to big 40k here. It's likely the low production run was because the factory is heavily set to make Leviathan boxes, GW did say they were making enough for everyone, which seems to indicate a production run greater than Dominion. So any release until a the launch of 10th will likely suffer (as long as its desirable of course).

 

Long story short, seems to me that GW have tunnel vision at the moment for 10th edition and nothing else will matter till that hits and provides a great profit bump.

 

Also a point about the shareholders, unless they come from hobby backgrounds, they aren't likely to be sympathetic at this stage as GW still sold out of product, so money was still made. Now, change will be made if there's an impact on demand (people swearing off new releases for example), then they'll start to fret.

 

A way to have dealt with this better would have been to start producing 10th edition boxes earlier on fewer machines, thus leaving more machines to make other product. Or on purposely leave any other product launches till after 10th, doing more made to order stuff or small releases to pad things out if needs be.

[Toxichobbit]

Given that they can't keep new releases for 40k and adjacent games in stock and they can't keep old releases in stock, the answer should be that they slow down their release schedule. That won't ever happen though, as they'd rather sell out and upset customers than slow down to catch up. Is the Rogal Dorn still unavailable? World Eaters Eightbound? And I'm sure there's lots more. As problems for a business go, demand outstripping production is a "good" one to have, until it happens so often that people stop supporting your business. Privateer Press almost killed their company doing that and are still on life support. Games Workshop is bigger, but they are not invulnerable and their continued push to make Warhammer mainstream will eventually backfire if they don't get their production issues in order.

[Rusted Boltgun]

I think the make up of the boxes doesn't help.

If they had smaller boxes with just the teams and the extra scatter rather than the full ITD sprues, they could make more - and therefore sell more to more people (and hopefully keep the customer base happier).  

I can't quite believe that it sold out so quickly but maybe shouldn't be surprised after the last set. 

[307kg]

The part I just do not understand is, why they don’t use the queue system that was implemented after the Idomitus and Cursed city releases.
 

That seemed to help for the popular releases immediately following, and the GW website seems to still direct to it when you type in the website url…

[firestorm40k]

1 hour ago, ZeroWolf said:

I think Kill Team fans were sacrificed on the altar to big 40k here. It's likely the low production run was because the factory is heavily set to make Leviathan boxes, GW did say they were making enough for everyone, which seems to indicate a production run greater than Dominion. So any release until a the launch of 10th will likely suffer (as long as its desirable of course).

Yes, I think that is definitely part of it; another reason, in my opinion anyway, is that GW have produced the run for this and the previous two Kill Team sets based on the sales of another previous Kill Team expansion. 

 

In a recent Painting Phase video, they were discussing Soulshackle selling out quickly, and Peachy spoke about there being a department/team in the company whose job it is to decide how much of a product they should produce; they aren't hobbyists, but just look at sales for products they deem 'similar' (even if they really aren't). 

 

When I heard that, a light bulb went off in my head - I just thought "they're basing the current Kill Team expansions' production runs on the sales of 'Pariah Nexus'."  That set wasn't massively well received, and almost a year later some retailers were selling these off at a big discount. 

 

So I bet the production estimate department (or whatever it's called) in GW look at that, think 'well, that under-sold by 30-40%, so clearly there's not that much appeal for Kill Team sets that contain new miniatures & terrain, so let's produce about 50% than we did for that.' 

 

Obviously, as they're not hobbyists, they don't really have the understanding that Pariah Nexus and something like Shadowvaults are so very, very different, their decision has been incorrectly drawn. 

 

It may be that in 6 months to a year they might look at these three latest sets selling out in seconds and think 'clearly we've underestimated demand, let's increase production by 25-30%', but right now that doesn't stop many, many hobbyists being disappointed right now. 

Edited May 6, 2023 by firestorm40k

[Fubl]

Would not be suprised if they keep the data of kill team and war cry data together.   One of the local stores has most of into the dark sets except soul shackles 

 

 

also not suprised if the data is based off 2 or 3 sets back.   Worked for an auto manufactor and we were 90 - 120 day sale based refill period so the algo  would supply your refill then.  

Edited May 6, 2023 by Fubl

[Khornestar]

48 minutes ago, 307kg said:

The part I just do not understand is, why they don’t use the queue system that was implemented after the Idomitus and Cursed city releases.
 

That seemed to help for the popular releases immediately following, and the GW website seems to still direct to it when you type in the website url…

I assume because The queue system would then tie up production for some indeterminate amount of time based on those numbers, instead of just selling 100% of whatever low production of a given set they’ve created so they can move on to the next thing.

 

Painting Phase and I believe Honest Wargamer have also said they just can’t keep up with production; their factory capabilities just aren’t enough to meet demand. They’re looking to expand, apparently.

 

The influencer thing is dumb, I agree. Hype is great but it goes nowhere if it doesn’t result in more sales due to no product to buy. Dumb.

 

And the extra hilarious thing is all the extra product that ends up in landfills when they overproduce stuff that doesn’t sell. Veterans of the Long War were talking about that in one of their podcasts. Pallets and pallets of new product from their entire range.

 

But what’s the downside for GW? Kill Team and practically everything else still sells out, they still make profits, and the only people unhappy are the customers who didn’t get to spend their money. Whether it’s from me or a scalper, they have no incentive to care until they do.

[ZeroWolf]

The other thing about the queue system (I've heard so a pinch of salt needed) is that they have to buy in with every use or something along those lines. GW being GW will penny pinch till they know they can buy it and still make lots of money...aka why they're probably going to implement it for 10th edition.

[Doghouse]

34 minutes ago, Khornestar said:

But what’s the downside for GW? Kill Team and practically everything else still sells out, they still make profits, and the only people unhappy are the customers who didn’t get to spend their money. Whether it’s from me or a scalper, they have no incentive to care until they do.

 

That's pretty much it summed up. They don't care, they got their money.

 

Back to the 3d printer it is then.

 

[beefeb]

1 hour ago, Khornestar said:

 

But what’s the downside for GW? Kill Team and practically everything else still sells out, they still make profits, and the only people unhappy are the customers who didn’t get to spend their money. Whether it’s from me or a scalper, they have no incentive to care until they do.

 

 

Good points in your post.  Regarding the whats the downside to GW point , I would highlight myself as an example.  Ive been a massive GW fanboy since the late 80's.  I have stuck with them through difficult times and have spent a fair chunk of cash over the years.  In the last 18months, I would say i have spent little or nothing on GW products.  The stuff I wanted being either sold out, or dilly dallying in some production queue somewhere.  Perversely, Im at a stage of life where I currently have more disposable cash and time to spend on the hobby than I have ever had in my entire lifetime.......and theres nothing from GW to buy.

 

In the last 18months I have, for the first time in my hobby life, been tempted away from GW as my plastic addiction of choice.  I have discovered Flames of War and Bolt Action, and Ive been buying and painting, and dare I say it, gaming with these armies.   I have not played a single game of 9th edition....I played no more than 4 or 5 times in 8th.  My behaviour is replicated across every gaming circle Im in.  This must represent a big loss of revenue in the current market to GW, and as I or others become more and more fed up with their treatment by GW, a massive loss of ongoing revenue.

 

As I have said, I dont begrudge any of the social media influencers their good fortune of getting models for free....I know many of them personally and they are largely a lovely bunch of people......but as a customer I am getting utterly sick fed up of seeing stuff coming out that I and none of my gaming circle even get the chance of owning.....its a crazy businbess model.

[darkhorse0607]

1 hour ago, Khornestar said:

The influencer thing is dumb, I agree. Hype is great but it goes nowhere if it doesn’t result in more sales due to no product to buy. Dumb.

 

 

I think it's just salt in the wound at this point. Are they giving away enough numbers wise to make a difference for the overall stock, no. Does it still rub the salt in the wound when you can't get the product you want and go on social media and see your feed flooded with influencers who not only got it but got it for free and early? Yes

 

1 hour ago, Khornestar said:

Painting Phase and I believe Honest Wargamer have also said they just can’t keep up with production; their factory capabilities just aren’t enough to meet demand. They’re looking to expand, apparently.

 

Hopefully they handle this with more care than they did the warehouse processing update

 

 

This box didn't really interest me because Votann aren't my thing, but another occurrence of "we have this product to sell, just kidding it's gone" is really tempering my excitement for Leviathan. I know they've said multiple times at this point that it's the most they've produced for a product, but at the same time if the recent 6ish months or Indomitus is anything to go off of, then it's still going to be a massive pain that I am not looking forwards to. At the same time, I've thought about skipping the box and getting the multi-part kits in a few months, but then this whole situation comes back into play, where I have to wonder if the scalping/production issues are going to be any better by then and if I can even get the kits later on. Really a losing situation for anyone but GW's profit margins

[Urauloth]

It's impossible to get excited for Kill Team releases anymore because I know I won't be able to buy them, which is a poor position for your main game to be in. At least I'll eventually be able to pick up the teams when they restock after their own cycle of selling out instantly on pre-order in a few months.

 

The unique terrain in each set goes away forever though: It comes back once, sells out before you can process your payment, and get Cursed City'd. Even if you buy the book from that expansion, you can't actually play the missions as intended.

Edited May 6, 2023 by Urauloth

[Brother Captain Alberic]

Whole thing makes me worried about Leviathan I registered on dark sphere but when I asked about how many they expect to get they said if they get handicapped they may have already filled their list. So not sure what’s going to happen and not like they can say for sure. So this whole thing doesn’t fill me with confidence.

[Lord Marshal]

Just now, Brother Captain Alberic said:

Whole thing makes me worried about Leviathan I registered on dark sphere but when I asked about how many they expect to get they said if they get handicapped they may have already filled their list. So not sure what’s going to happen and not like they can say for sure. So this whole thing doesn’t fill me with confidence.

 

I feel like Leviathan would be so much of a PR disaster that if they encounter similar issues that they will probably run MTO for it again if the worst happens. 

 

The numbers of upset Kill Team players is probably nothing next to the many, many more Marine players hyped for a new edition of 40k.