40k Battleforces rumours

[WrathOfTheLion]

1 minute ago, Mumeishi said:

Well that was an obvious thing... I missed the Angron boat  Thanks GW ... whatever happened to the days of just being able to get a product without FOMO or going all crazy to try and get a product the second it drops... This has left a sour taste with me that even rivals my normal distaste for GW's marketing practices...  what a double edged sword GW is...I love their models but hate their company...  . It's moments like this that you are on the cusp of looking elsewhere for hobby content...

 

M

The Christmas boxes are usually pretty sought after, but they hit a stride putting the Chaos Primarchs in them. Last year they did TS/Magnus and DG/Mortarion, and those sold quite well.

[Cenobite Terminator]

I was able to snag the world eaters box… super stoked about it too.

[01RTB01]

I grabbed the dino box on a pre pre order as I don't have a chunk from it and need extras of the stuff I don't.

 

Be interesting to see the fun with the LI pre orders next Saturday...

[MithrilForge]

1 hour ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

The Christmas boxes are usually pretty sought after, but they hit a stride putting the Chaos Primarchs in them. Last year they did TS/Magnus and DG/Mortarion, and those sold quite well.

 

Understandable...hence why they could've made a bit more stock... they(GW) only plan on selling set amounts (happy bottom line for GW & share holders) but that ends up having many disgruntled customers.... I don't fancy that as a good business practice ...make a limited run of something to make some happy and a lot not happy... makes me annoyed cause GW's thought pattern will be "that consumer didn't get that Holiday box, this means we sell that LI box to them  win win for the company" 

Now it really seriously tempts me to go spend my Christmas money elsewhere... 

 

M 

[Cenobite Terminator]

Check with your FLGS. That’s how I got mine.

[MithrilForge]

2 hours ago, milddead said:

Check with your FLGS. That’s how I got mine.

Just got off the Phone with My FLGS and may have(fingers crossed) hopefully tagged myself an Angron Box for Christmas 

 

My Christmas spirit has returned... I still love to hate GW though ... ...

 

M. 

[happyslugger]

The Christmas box sets  are typically how I've built the majority of my armies.  I got the TS last year and the WE this year. My Primaris BA army has been built predominantly from these types of releases.  I very rarely buy a box of X from GW.  I go to my Local independent store a d see if they have stock and they have luckily helped me out over the last few years. Love the models, barely play, but some of the stuff GW does is a little strange..

[Halandaar]

3 hours ago, happyslugger said:

The Christmas box sets  are typically how I've built the majority of my armies.  I got the TS last year and the WE this year. My Primaris BA army has been built predominantly from these types of releases.  I very rarely buy a box of X from GW.  

 

Definitely how I prefer to approach army building too; In most cases my armies slowly accumulate over time via whatever comes in edition Starter Sets, 2-faction Battleboxes, faction launch sets, Christmas battleforces, the Hachette partwork magazines, or Combat Patrol/Vanguard boxes. Buying a standalone kit in a box is always the least cost effective way to get it and I tend to save that for one-off things to fill gaps in otherwise fleshed out armies wherever possible.

 

[Progenitor]

I think it's short-sighted of GW to be honest. Yes, the bean counters are happy as all of them have sold. However, I was looking at a Votann box, that box would have triggered substantial further spending to get an army going. Without that box I am most likely not going to be doing that and continuing with my current armies that don't need money spending on them. So this is actually directly hurting their sales figures over a longer term, as well as the experience and the generating of a negative customer experience. I know that one man isn't going to change their sales strategy but I'm going to presume that I'm not the only person who is in this position. 

[Petitioner's City]

4 minutes ago, Progenitor said:

I think it's short-sighted of GW to be honest. Yes, the bean counters are happy as all of them have sold. However, I was looking at a Votann box, that box would have triggered substantial further spending to get an army going. Without that box I am most likely not going to be doing that and continuing with my current armies that don't need money spending on them. So this is actually directly hurting their sales figures over a longer term, as well as the experience and the generating of a negative customer experience. I know that one man isn't going to change their sales strategy but I'm going to presume that I'm not the only person who is in this position. 

 

They could indeed be bigger start collecting boxes; but they also are probably difficult to store, taking up more room in both warehouses and shop floors, and the ones that don't sell tend to sit for quite some time. 

 

Even a size down, do Vanguard/Combat Patrol boxes tend to sell too?

[Noserenda]

Its not the same product, but id heard the reason they stopped the MTO guarantee on boxes was that they barely ended up actually making any more than planned, the scalper/fomo/impulse buyers werent as attracted i guess? Either way it was a bunch more work for them for not much money.

Chuck rocks at the people who hoard them i guess? :P 

[Halandaar]

39 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

Either way it was a bunch more work for them for not much money.

 

Setting the webstore to accept any order between 2 dates vs Setting website to only accept orders up to a set quantity does not feel like "a bunch more work" to me, especially not if the amount they end up making is basically the same anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

[Noserenda]

50 minutes ago, Halandaar said:

 

Setting the webstore to accept any order between 2 dates vs Setting website to only accept orders up to a set quantity does not feel like "a bunch more work" to me, especially not if the amount they end up making is basically the same anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

Its more than the webstore though isnt it? The boxes and sprues dont just magically appear when you add items to your cart :D They have to prepare for making a whole bunch of them even if they dont end up needing to given lead times and how packed their manufacturing schedule is.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Noserenda

[Karhedron]

I agree, these box sets were probably produced months ago.

[Rusted Boltgun]

37 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

Its more than the webstore though isnt it? The boxes and sprues dont just magically appear when you add items to your cart :D They have to prepare for making a whole bunch of them even if they dont end up needing to given lead times and how packed their manufacturing schedule is.

 

Agreed, they could make more boxsets but then there might be less of other things (remember Soulshackle and Ashes of Faith) or more delays to Legion Imperialis, the new Kill Team season or even further delays to Horus Heresy plastics.

 

I'm not apologising for GW, just acknowledging a finite production capacity.

 

It certainly wasn't great this year how third party stores appeared to get less stock that normal so people were funnelled to the GW store.

 

GW could do discount sales instead but they would probably only discount the stuff that doesn't sell and not many people want. Like Marine ATVs.

[Karhedron]

59 minutes ago, Rusted Boltgun said:

GW could do discount sales instead but they would probably only discount the stuff that doesn't sell and not many people want. Like Marine ATVs.

 

What is GW's incentive to discount stuff that is selling well? Bundling the Outriders and ATV with the new Jump units in the SM Christmas box set makes it look like they are trying to shift excess stock.

[Halandaar]

1 hour ago, Noserenda said:

Its more than the webstore though isnt it? The boxes and sprues dont just magically appear when you add items to your cart :D They have to prepare for making a whole bunch of them even if they dont end up needing to given lead times and how packed their manufacturing schedule is.

 

If they put a product on a time-limited Made To Order the delivery time for it can be up to 180 days in the future; therefore if the number of orders doesn't actually exceed the amount they planned for and produced up front (as you yourself speculated) then they don't need to produce any extras and no further work is required.

 

 

 

 

[tzeentch9]

On 11/12/2023 at 10:50 PM, Mumeishi said:

Well that was an obvious thing... I missed the Angron boat  Thanks GW ... whatever happened to the days of just being able to get a product without FOMO or going all crazy to try and get a product the second it drops... This has left a sour taste with me that even rivals my normal distaste for GW's marketing practices...  what a double edged sword GW is...I love their models but hate their company...  . It's moments like this that you are on the cusp of looking elsewhere for hobby content...

 

M

 

 

 

That’s the internet and having a large customer base for you. If you make something that’s good value, it’ll go quickly. There will still be boxes floating around irl. You could pop into a hobby shop three years from now and see a couple of these boxes on a forgotten shelf. I’ve certainly seen that with past years ones

[lhg033]

Out of interest, what discount were Darksphere offering on these? 

 

I've noticed a few times things at initial release like the Cerastus or the first wave of the new space marine heroes kill team were not at the normal 20% discount they offer on GW - There was no way I would have been in time for the ROI to snag what I would have wanted, and I didn't have the budget spare anyway, but it was a bit frustrating to not know what the actual price would be for these if I had signed up to the ROI and this puts me off a bit from any future releases.

 

[Mogger351]

29 minutes ago, lhg033 said:

Out of interest, what discount were Darksphere offering on these? 

 

I've noticed a few times things at initial release like the Cerastus or the first wave of the new space marine heroes kill team were not at the normal 20% discount they offer on GW - There was no way I would have been in time for the ROI to snag what I would have wanted, and I didn't have the budget spare anyway, but it was a bit frustrating to not know what the actual price would be for these if I had signed up to the ROI and this puts me off a bit from any future releases.

 

I got on the RoI the day after it went up (thanks junk filter), didn't get one, so it must have been people that put their name down in the first 24 hours for WE.

 

I'm not sure what discount they offered but someone mentioned earlier in this thread they'd stuck to their normal discount.

 

Which honestly they are one of a small handful that did. That not hitting the expectation of the normally applied discount is what stopped me getting anything in the end.

[Emperor Ming]

2 hours ago, lhg033 said:

Out of interest, what discount were Darksphere offering on these?

It looks to be 20%, but since I can see it stated, it might be up and down on certain items

 

I like sites that show me the % rather than having to try and work it out

[marineboyjimbob]

I did notice that Wayland only had 10% off this year rather than the 20% they had last year - one of the reasons I didn't go for the AM box this year.

[Halandaar]

3 hours ago, lhg033 said:

Out of interest, what discount were Darksphere offering on these? 

 

I didn't do their Register of Interest this time around so don't know for sure that they did sell the Battleforces at the usual 20% off, but in all the time I've used their ROIs (including this year) I've never known them offer a lower discount, even when other stores have cut theirs.

[Mogger351]

From xttz over on Dakka:

 

Quote

I've heard from several places that the battleforces were sold to 3rd party retailers via the trade accounts as full sets for 40k / AOS, each set containing one of each box. To sell ten Tyranid or WE boxes they would also need to buy ten marine / ork / etc boxes.

Obviously they could still sell more marine boxes via their own website, but it implies they were produced in fairly even quantities.

 

[Arbedark]

8 minutes ago, Halandaar said:

 

I didn't do their Register of Interest this time around so don't know for sure that they did sell the Battleforces at the usual 20% off, but in all the time I've used their ROIs (including this year) I've never known them offer a lower discount, even when other stores have cut theirs.

 

FYI, last month I bought the Space Marine Heroes Season 3 box from Dark Sphere and they had a 10% markup on top of the list price - they are now discounting the same product as part of their Black Friday sale - so they clearly aren't as angelic as they may sometimes be portrayed. 

 

All the large stores will do whatever discount they think they can get away with. It's just the nature of business.