Heresy 3.0 in Spring/Summer

[Mr Farson]

The scourge of ghyran for AOS being an extended month long event feels like it could be the big content drop for AOS while that goes quiet for a while.

 

40k has had it's big content drop with some more still to come. Perhaps the last vestiges of get everything else out prior to the summers big release 

[Imriy]

7 hours ago, crimsondave said:

 The book is likely printed in China but if it goes through the UK for packaging it will probably be ok, but I’m not sure how that works.

I believe the tariff only applies to import location, so it should be fine. 

[Matcap86]

Seems someone got the new Lotarra model a tad early.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/236086815774

[Wraith776]

10 hours ago, crimsondave said:

I seriously doubt it.  $32 on a $315 box is noticeable but I can’t see it keeping people willing to spend $300+ away.  GW has been well in the black so they could eat it or share it.  Even if they passed 100% on I think people will buy it regardless.  The book is likely printed in China but if it goes through the UK for packaging it will probably be ok, but I’m not sure how that works.

 

Its not just the 10% though. It also pushes up the costs of operating in the country in other ways.
Their store fronts likely import products from elsewhere as well, sometimes from china or other countries with higher tarrifs. To maintain the same profit margin prices will need to rise by more than 10%.

That or they eat it and don't pass it on, or raise prices everywhere like other companies have done.

They are more insulated though as the bulk of their product comes from the UK.

[twopounder]

This isn't the thread to complain about tariffs, its about HH 3.0.

 

In terms of domestic production, GW had manufacturing in the US, but I recall they shut down all of it over 10 years ago. Not sure what insanity convinced them to do that, as the biggest complaint they have is production limitation due to their power grid. Considering that NA is around 40% of their total sales, any price increase you see in HH 3.0 is almost certainly due to them redlining production and releasing everything as a FOMO package. Their webstore is terminally out of stock and I'm betting that the HH 3.0 box set ends up selling out in most places rapidly and FLGS get screwed out of copies.

 

When they can only meet half or less of demand, prices will be high. And that's before scalpers. They shouldn't have closed down their US manufacturing, as that would have very easily taken the strain off the releases for the rest of the world and allowed sustainable production rates.

[Matcap86]

2 hours ago, twopounder said:

This isn't the thread to complain about tariffs, its about HH 3.0.

 

In terms of domestic production, GW had manufacturing in the US, but I recall they shut down all of it over 10 years ago. Not sure what insanity convinced them to do that, as the biggest complaint they have is production limitation due to their power grid. Considering that NA is around 40% of their total sales, any price increase you see in HH 3.0 is almost certainly due to them redlining production and releasing everything as a FOMO package. Their webstore is terminally out of stock and I'm betting that the HH 3.0 box set ends up selling out in most places rapidly and FLGS get screwed out of copies.

 

When they can only meet half or less of demand, prices will be high. And that's before scalpers. They shouldn't have closed down their US manufacturing, as that would have very easily taken the strain off the releases for the rest of the world and allowed sustainable production rates.

 

I mean, I can still get the age of darkness box just fine at my local FLGS and most of the FOMO boxes also stuck around for a bit. Plastic stock seems to be mostly just fine.

 

I also think they're building up stock on the resin stuff for when they actually launch. So people can go kid in a candy store and get all the things they want from the store. 

[Halandaar]

2 hours ago, twopounder said:

In terms of domestic production, GW had manufacturing in the US, but I recall they shut down all of it over 10 years ago. Not sure what insanity convinced them to do that, as the biggest complaint they have is production limitation due to their power grid. Considering that NA is around 40% of their total sales, any price increase you see in HH 3.0 is almost certainly due to them redlining production and releasing everything as a FOMO package. Their webstore is terminally out of stock and I'm betting that the HH 3.0 box set ends up selling out in most places rapidly and FLGS get screwed out of copies.

 

When they can only meet half or less of demand, prices will be high. And that's before scalpers. They shouldn't have closed down their US manufacturing, as that would have very easily taken the strain off the releases for the rest of the world and allowed sustainable production rates.

 

What you have to remember in discussions like this is that GW has the numbers, we do not. 

 

The single highest cost in producing minis is the metal injections molds - having to have two of those for each kit so you can have one on both sides of the Atlantic is an absolutely massive expense, very probably in the millions when you consider how many kits they make. I suspect that is probably the main reason they stopped duplicating production in the US in favour of just importing finished products.

 

Would it be useful in the current situation to have at least some manufacturing on US soil? Sure, but investing tens of millions to set up a production facility from scratch and then nearly doubling the setup cost of every kit in production to avoid a 10% import tariff of dubious longevity doesn't seem like a obvious winner to me.

 

 

[Castellan Wulfrik]

2 hours ago, Halandaar said:

 

What you have to remember in discussions like this is that GW has the numbers, we do not. 

 

The single highest cost in producing minis is the metal injections molds - having to have two of those for each kit so you can have one on both sides of the Atlantic is an absolutely massive expense, very probably in the millions when you consider how many kits they make. I suspect that is probably the main reason they stopped duplicating production in the US in favour of just importing finished products.

 

Would it be useful in the current situation to have at least some manufacturing on US soil? Sure, but investing tens of millions to set up a production facility from scratch and then nearly doubling the setup cost of every kit in production to avoid a 10% import tariff of dubious longevity doesn't seem like a obvious winner to me.

 

 

Forgive me if this is stupid, but could they not just ship the moulds between the different countries production sites on a cycle? Even if not they wouldn't need to produce a second mould for every kit but just the most popular kits i.e. space marines. The cost of energy in the UK alone makes it hard for me to imagine that wouldn't be more profitable in the long term.

[Karhedron]

17 minutes ago, Castellan Wulfrik said:

Forgive me if this is stupid, but could they not just ship the moulds between the different countries production sites on a cycle? Even if not they wouldn't need to produce a second mould for every kit but just the most popular kits i.e. space marines. The cost of energy in the UK alone makes it hard for me to imagine that wouldn't be more profitable in the long term.

 

Then they would need to invest in factories in the US, hire workers etc. Given the volumes that GW manufacture in that would be a huge expense and far more costly than simply shipping the finished product. Most hobby companies manufacture in one location and then ship worldwide. Only really big manufacturing companies have the resources and the need to duplicate manufacturing facilities.

 

Could GW cut costs by outsourcing their manufacturing to a cheaper country? Probably they could but it would be unlikely to be the US. 20 years ago it might have been China, today it would be more likely India or Vietnam. However GW have good reasons for not doing so. They have all their creative minds co-located with their manufacturing facilities, that makes a lot of things easier. Also we know that GW have outsourced some manufacturing to the far East in the past (terrain I believe) and were not entirely impressed by the results. Also GW prides itself on being a British company and not outsourcing manufacturing or profits. Manufacturing in the US would make less sense than manufacturing in the far East. If GW aren't outsourcing there, I can't see a reason for them to outsource to the US.

 

UK energy costs are high but nowhere near the costs of setting up new factories.

[ThaneOfTas]

2 hours ago, Castellan Wulfrik said:

could they not just ship the moulds between the different countries production sites on a cycle?

By memory they tried something along these lines and they ran into issues of moulds getting lost or damaged in transit. Obviously this is a really bad thing to risk, and when combined with the fact that they couldn't convince enough of their senior staff to relocate to the US in order to run things over there they decided it wasn't worth trying to make US based production work.

Edited May 6 by ThaneOfTas

[Marshal Rohr]

Did the rumor about Heresy Arcane Journals ever go anywhere or resurface? 

[twopounder]

9 hours ago, Halandaar said:

 

What you have to remember in discussions like this is that GW has the numbers, we do not. 

 

The single highest cost in producing minis is the metal injections molds - having to have two of those for each kit so you can have one on both sides of the Atlantic is an absolutely massive expense, very probably in the millions when you consider how many kits they make. I suspect that is probably the main reason they stopped duplicating production in the US in favour of just importing finished products.

 

Would it be useful in the current situation to have at least some manufacturing on US soil? Sure, but investing tens of millions to set up a production facility from scratch and then nearly doubling the setup cost of every kit in production to avoid a 10% import tariff of dubious longevity doesn't seem like a obvious winner to me.

 

 

As I said, they shut down factories they already had. While not ideal, they could start it back up for less than they spent on their website. Areas in Kentucky, Texas, Tennessee, etc have cheap power, labor and business friendly laws. Also, this isn't about avoiding tariffs, it's about the UK power grid getting redlined and power costs being far above the US. 

 

As for molds, they could just have the US plant produce the high quantity kits and the UK plant produce fomo/limited run kits. They're still paying for massive warehouses in the US, which is not cheap either. 

6 hours ago, Castellan Wulfrik said:

Forgive me if this is stupid, but could they not just ship the moulds between the different countries production sites on a cycle? Even if not they wouldn't need to produce a second mould for every kit but just the most popular kits i.e. space marines. The cost of energy in the UK alone makes it hard for me to imagine that wouldn't be more profitable in the long term.

I worked at a factory that did this. One location was a black hole for molds and lost everything that was sent to them.

 

Molds can be expensive, but there is no way they only have 1 mold of each type. That means only one machine would be able to produce kits. They have several. Plus you have to pull and clean the mold at regular intervals. 

 

Maybe fomo kits have one. There is also the matter of mold material. Steel lasts a lot longer but costs more. Aluminum is far cheaper and is likely for fomo stuff. So yeah, they can do a lot of things to increase production, but their current solution is fewer kits at twice the price.

6 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

Then they would need to invest in factories in the US, hire workers etc. Given the volumes that GW manufacture in that would be a huge expense and far more costly than simply shipping the finished product. Most hobby companies manufacture in one location and then ship worldwide. Only really big manufacturing companies have the resources and the need to duplicate manufacturing facilities.

 

Could GW cut costs by outsourcing their manufacturing to a cheaper country? Probably they could but it would be unlikely to be the US. 20 years ago it might have been China, today it would be more likely India or Vietnam. However GW have good reasons for not doing so. They have all their creative minds co-located with their manufacturing facilities, that makes a lot of things easier. Also we know that GW have outsourced some manufacturing to the far East in the past (terrain I believe) and were not entirely impressed by the results. Also GW prides itself on being a British company and not outsourcing manufacturing or profits. Manufacturing in the US would make less sense than manufacturing in the far East. If GW aren't outsourcing there, I can't see a reason for them to outsource to the US.

 

UK energy costs are high but nowhere near the costs of setting up new factories.

It's not the UK. Production is far cheaper to spin up in the US. There are people running injection molding out of their garage. It's more about time than anything. But hey, don't complain the next time scalpers get all of the boxes you want . GW has options, they just don't want to exercise them.

[Marshal Rohr]

47 minutes ago, twopounder said:

As I said, they shut down factories they already had. While not ideal, they could start it back up for less than they spent on their website. Areas in Kentucky, Texas, Tennessee, etc have cheap power, labor and business friendly laws. Also, this isn't about avoiding tariffs, it's about the UK power grid getting redlined and power costs being far above the US. 

 

As for molds, they could just have the US plant produce the high quantity kits and the UK plant produce fomo/limited run kits. They're still paying for massive warehouses in the US, which is not cheap either. 

I worked at a factory that did this. One location was a black hole for molds and lost everything that was sent to them.

 

Molds can be expensive, but there is no way they only have 1 mold of each type. That means only one machine would be able to produce kits. They have several. Plus you have to pull and clean the mold at regular intervals. 

 

Maybe fomo kits have one. There is also the matter of mold material. Steel lasts a lot longer but costs more. Aluminum is far cheaper and is likely for fomo stuff. So yeah, they can do a lot of things to increase production, but their current solution is fewer kits at twice the price.

It's not the UK. Production is far cheaper to spin up in the US. There are people running injection molding out of their garage. It's more about time than anything. But hey, don't complain the next time scalpers get all of the boxes you want . GW has options, they just don't want to exercise them.

Hey buddy, I don’t know if you know this, but Americans (even the poor ones) are much wealthier than the British/Europeans (for now). We are incredibly expensive for

manufacturing for a less capable specialist workforce. Every single thing you said is empirically wrong and has no bearing on rumors. The Heresy 3 boxes would’ve been here months ago because they came on a ship and product would’ve been sent here before the tariffs went into effect. 

Edited May 6 by Marshal Rohr

[Joe]

I would also stress that "UK company opening factory in US, all production inevitably being sucked over there and ultimately being bought out by an American company and twisted into an unrecognisable mess" is something we've had the displeasure of watching repeatedly in the UK over the last few decades, and has ultimately ruined every single company it's happened to. But we're getting off-topic at this stage.

[crimsondave]

26 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Hey buddy, I don’t know if you know this, but Americans (even the poor ones) are much wealthier than the British/Europeans (for now). We are incredibly expensive for

manufacturing for a less capable specialist workforce. Every single thing you said is empirically wrong and has no bearing on rumors. The Heresy 3 boxes would’ve been here months ago because they came on a ship and product would’ve been sent here before the tariffs went into effect. 

The old “your wrong” argument.  

[Deschenus Maximus]

TIL that GW shut down their US factory 

[DemonGSides]

52 minutes ago, crimsondave said:

The old “your wrong” argument.  

 

Im not sure the opposite argument of "Trust me bro" is any stronger, tbf. 

Edited May 6 by DemonGSides

[MasterBlaster]

1 hour ago, Joe said:

I would also stress that "UK company opening factory in US, all production inevitably being sucked over there and ultimately being bought out by an American company and twisted into an unrecognisable mess" is something we've had the displeasure of watching repeatedly in the UK over the last few decades, and has ultimately ruined every single company it's happened to. But we're getting off-topic at this stage.

GW became an unrecognizable mess on its own imo

[crimsondave]

50 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

 

Im not sure the opposite argument of "Trust me bro" is any stronger, tbf. 

You not bothering to read or comprehend does not qualify as a “trust me bro.”

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Friendly neighbourhood moderator Dr. R. here 

 

We've veered way off of the Heresy release schedule into manufacturing decisions and personal acrimony.  As such, I'm locking this thread for the moment - if you have a compelling reason why it should be unlocked (say, some new, relevant information regarding the release of the next edition of 30K), message myself or another moderator and the thread can be unlocked.