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 kodos wrote:
you waited 20 years for Warhammer to get the update it deserves, what are another 10 if they get it right.....

I didn't, though. I wrote it off as something dead. [Though... 20 years? I was playing 7th & 8th edition in 2010.]

The initial previews for this were interesting, but I think we're getting something equally dead.

last good version of the game was 6th, after that it just got worse with each release

and yes, a lot of people hope that TOW will be like 6th again, with good written books and the tournament scene that was there

I find it funny all these people talking about TOW as "dead" or "dead on arrival", giving that one of the factions that will be released at launch is undead Tomb Kings.

Honestly, the issue isn't the time until it finally comes out. It's more about the now systemic delays with logistic and distribution that is happening worldwide for all companies, not just GW, that is now the new norm in a post-pandemic, climate change dealing world.

That's what killing the "hype" of new stuff, and I think both customers and companies are still in the process of adapting to this situation. It's better to launch TOW when GW is certain to be able to handle full production of the first wave, rather than trying to do it "in a hurry" and have a lot of disappointed players unable to buy their boxes because it's "temporarily* out of stock"

*roll a die and add unknown modifiers to know the date it will be available again

Sarouan wrote:
I find it funny all these people talking about TOW as "dead" or "dead on arrival",

I checked in on this thread to see if there had been any actual news I had missed and the overwhelming majority of the posts seem to be people making things up, believing and reacting to their imagination, and projecting it as some bizarre reality

Sarouan wrote:
I find it funny all these people talking about TOW as "dead" or "dead on arrival", giving that one of the factions that will be released at launch is undead Tomb Kings.

Honestly, the issue isn't the time until it finally comes out. It's more about the now systemic delays with logistic and distribution that is happening worldwide for all companies, not just GW, that is now the new norm in a post-pandemic, climate change dealing world.

That's what killing the "hype" of new stuff, and I think both customers and companies are still in the process of adapting to this situation. It's better to launch TOW when GW is certain to be able to handle full production of the first wave, rather than trying to do it "in a hurry" and have a lot of disappointed players unable to buy their boxes because it's "temporarily* out of stock"

*roll a die and add unknown modifiers to know the date it will be available again

That seems obtuse. This isn't (from the outside) a 'hurried' project, nor is that the issue. GW's has been in a perpetual state of 'temporarily out of stock' for a lot of products for a good five+ years now.
TOW isn't going to launch in environment where that magically isn't true any more.

What's killing the 'hype' is how GW is handling information now, not a nebulous release date. It doesn't really matter if the release it in 3 months, a year or 18 months. The information they've provided is that it went from an implied reboot of WFB, to a small selection of factions of WFB, to a small selection of factions with a handful of new models and a bunch of old kits, which were substandard even at the time they were originally released.

 judgedoug wrote:

Sarouan wrote:
I find it funny all these people talking about TOW as "dead" or "dead on arrival",

I checked in on this thread to see if there had been any actual news I had missed and the overwhelming majority of the posts seem to be people making things up, believing and reacting to their imagination, and projecting it as some bizarre reality

The last three pages have been spawned by a new set of Valrak rumors. Whether you find that enough to qualify as actual news is up to you, but a large part of the conversation has stayed related to that. Which is pretty uncharacteristic for this thread. I'm not sure lamenting the quality of new posts is warranted this time around.

Here's hoping GW has something new to show during the upcoming Warhammer Day preview.

Voss wrote:

GW's has been in a perpetual state of 'temporarily out of stock' for a lot of products for a good five+ years now.

No, the problem is worse than that. I'm talking about regular products going randomly "temporarily out of stock" for a long period of time or even pre-orders than take a couple more weeks to actually be delivered at the store.

It's not something there since "5 years", it something that started with the pandemic and seems to become the new norm now.

The recent podcast with Ash and a canadian retailer on Guerilla Miniature Game channel is talking a bit about that, interestingly.

What's killing the 'hype' is how GW is handling information now, not a nebulous release date.

The real hype is when new products are actually for sale, not a vague preview made years before the pre-order release. This is just noise on the internet made by a handful of fanboyz, it means nothing in the end. It's like we had rumors from Warseer in a time our teenagers couldn't know. What truly kills the hype is when you should be able to buy the new stuff, you just can't because it's "temporarily out of stock" or simply not on the shelves at the day of release because it wasn't delivered yet...and this situation lasts for weeks, or even worse months.

Though I do agree this is rather silly to talk about it so soon.

I believe the way Warhammer Community uses its articles to make "previews" at such a ridiculous pace needs to be adjusted to this new norm - like, stop trying to do this weekly. We saw how awkward it was with Legion Imperialis when it was finally postponed from its original release date. Ironically, I think the way GW communicated and released new products at the time of Warhammer Battle when it was around, a couple of decades ago, would be actually more suited now. But that's just my personnal opinion on the matter.

Sarouan wrote:

Voss wrote:

GW's has been in a perpetual state of 'temporarily out of stock' for a lot of products for a good five+ years now.

No, the problem is worse than that. I'm talking about regular products going randomly "temporarily out of stock" for a long period of time or even pre-orders than take a couple more weeks to actually be delivered at the store.

It's not something there since "5 years", it something that started with the pandemic and seems to become the new norm now.

It isn't. Its been longer than that. It was a problem that started during 8th edition and continued into 9th (and still continued). It just became more obvious during the pandemic.
Their production and warehouse issues existed independently of the pandemic.

What's killing the 'hype' is how GW is handling information now, not a nebulous release date.

The real hype is when new products are actually for sale, .

No, it isn't. 'Hype' is explicitly for pre-release. If a company is waiting until after a product is on sale, its too late.
Its a weird and vaguely predatory business model, but that's how it works.

Voss wrote:

Sarouan wrote:

Voss wrote:

GW's has been in a perpetual state of 'temporarily out of stock' for a lot of products for a good five+ years now.

No, the problem is worse than that. I'm talking about regular products going randomly "temporarily out of stock" for a long period of time or even pre-orders than take a couple more weeks to actually be delivered at the store.

It's not something there since "5 years", it something that started with the pandemic and seems to become the new norm now.

It isn't. Its been longer than that. It was a problem that started during 8th edition and continued into 9th (and still continued). It just became more obvious during the pandemic.
Their production and warehouse issues existed independently of the pandemic.

I mean not really.
GW started to develop a new warehousing and factory setup to cope with their increased popularity that started earlier (probably around 8th edition when Kirby stepped down if I recall right).
The problem is the Pandemic did three things

1) It shut down GW for several months which resulted in a massive buy-up of all stock people could get hold of.

2) It kept GW's production hobbled for many months after until covid safe workpractice could be dropped.

3) It inflated GW's number of customers significantly.

The result is that the Pandemic put GW at a disadvantage because whatever stock there was before it, was gobbled up fast during. Then actually overcoming that reduction in stock is hard when your market expands very suddenly and without any warning. GW basically planned for increased capacity with their new factory and warehouse and then wound up using all of it and needing more.


The problem now is
1) The cost of everything went up significantly so if GW does try to expand again right now, its going to cost them a lot more

2) The cost of everything went up, which along with the fact that everyone went back to work; means that GW could well see their market growth reduce or even shrink for a time. We already saw their stocks fall from the early pandemic period because GW's increase in profits reduced which made investors jump ship.

So right now isn't the best time for GW to start investing in even more factories and setup because it could be that in 1-2 years that market growth shrinks back. That doesn't mean GW did anything wrong; nor that their profits won't be healthy; just that an artificial high might well be followed by a delayed reduction. Again this might just manifest as a much diminished customer growth at some point. Ergo still growing, but slower. Rather than an actual reduction in the number of customers.


So yeah everyone wants everything back in stock and GW does as well; but chances are now is the time to be cautious with expansion least they end up investing a huge amount into something they end up not needing. Of course the bonus is that GW doesn't use loans for expansion; so if they do invest into it, at least if things scale back GW is just left holding building assets and land rather than being left with expanded facilities and debt.

the problem of certain products being always out of stock online, was there before the pandemic hit

it just got worse with people having free time and got a lot of money to spend
mainly US but the 1000$ compensation of everyone started the problems, not the pandemic itself, and not only for GW but in general

for GW the problems started with their management system switch did not work out as planned, and lock downs, supply issues and higher demand just made things even worse
and system problems are still ongoing as all those "miscounts" of stock items and showing items as available that are out of stock etc shows

an aggressive price politic is part of GWs probem solving, as increase the price to a point were demand and production capacities are in line with each other (with the risk that if it is too much, the market collapse, is it did with their chinese adventure)

for TOW, there is a good chance that instead of a regular pre-order and sale, we might see a made to order campaign as those would be the save way for GW for selling old models

 kodos wrote:
the problem of certain products being always out of stock online, was there before the pandemic hit

You're not reading. We are saying pandemic made it worse, and now that is the new norm. Delays in delivery weren't so bad as well before the pandemic. Yeah certain products were "out of stock online" before that, but not to that scale we are talking about since post pandemic situation.

for TOW, there is a good chance that instead of a regular pre-order and sale, we might see a made to order campaign as those would be the save way for GW for selling old models

I'm pretty sure they will handle it like Horus Heresy : a distinct brand on their website with some products on "print on demand" basis.

I mean its not a precise tool but..
GW Turnover 2016: £118m (+/- the same as the previous few years)
Turnover 2017: £158m
Turnover 2019: £256m
Turnover 2022: £415m

Obviously some of this is inflation (i.e. GW charge more for boxes of grey plastic they sell now than they did) - but it also represents a dramatic increase in sales.

I feel the shortages are due to this. A store having 100 copies of a kit and selling out on pre-orders is good for the store - but annoying if you were 101 in the queue. Or finally decided you wanted in 2-3 weeks later.

But yes - my lack of hype here is due to a lack of clarity of what GW are really aiming to do. As much as they repeat it, and the evidence mounts up, I can't seriously believe the aim is to try and sell models from 20+ years ago.

I have two thoughts on the "oh this is just for ye olde grognard, who likely has an army (or two) of WHFB anyway and GW don't expect to sell very much". Firstly - in that case this game is probably dead on arrival from a corporate perspective - because the evidence of GW supporting something that isn't selling is poor.

The second though, is that if this is basically "here's the 9th edition rulebook, have fun, bye" release - why has it taken years to produce?

I mean are GW delaying things so they can print ten thousand copies of the old Tomb King Skeleton Warriors and distribute them all around the world? I guess that would be a massive undertaking that would take time. But it also strikes me as commercially insane.

And yes - one of the biggest advocates of TOW in our group has gone kind of quiet now he's been told his Lizardmen are not meaningfully in it.

Tyel wrote:
I mean its not a precise tool but..
GW Turnover 2016: £118m (+/- the same as the previous few years)
Turnover 2017: £158m
Turnover 2019: £256m
Turnover 2022: £415m

And now GW needs several years to see if that £400m remains stable or if it takes a nosedive or soars higher before they can really respond. I could easily see 2023 being up (esp as its a new edition year); but 2024 could start to show reduction or at least reduced growth due to cost of living. A slowdown could well then continue into 2025

for GW to grow the yearly price increase helps to have increasing numbers to please shareholders while at the same time don't need to sell more

a reduction is only possible if sales decline in numbers that cannot be compensated by price increase, while in addition every year is new edition year now

I just don't expect that the numbers will increase on the same level as 2022

 Overread wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I mean its not a precise tool but..
GW Turnover 2016: £118m (+/- the same as the previous few years)
Turnover 2017: £158m
Turnover 2019: £256m
Turnover 2022: £415m

And now GW needs several years to see if that £400m remains stable or if it takes a nosedive or soars higher before they can really respond. I could easily see 2023 being up (esp as its a new edition year); but 2024 could start to show reduction or at least reduced growth due to cost of living. A slowdown could well then continue into 2025

But its also not like that £400m is the big jump. It looks like that because the years are spaced differently but they have a pretty constant growth of £50m per year on average. Of course I don't know how it actually went as some years are missing here but just by the given years its pretty linear

And back to the topic...

I think the rumour is probably legit, since the official warhammer community article does reference models from the 1990's returning, which doesn't include anything released post-6th edition (October 2000).

The skeletons are 1990's sculpts, which the WarCom article did say we are getting.

The base size change has come about because some of those ‘90s and ‘00s models became difficult to rank up

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/04/14/old-world-development-diary-on-bases-and-the-barons-of-bretonnia/quote

Mantic is going to be making bank on their 2022 not-tomb-king hard plastics at this rate, the 6th edition Bretonnians are great, the 4th edition skeletons not so much.

On a side note, the images in the article hint at a return to the classic lance formation.

I'm just happy that some classic minis will be available again so I can buy some new stuff for 6th edition games, highly likely that I'll go for a couple of brettonian boxes, it sounds like a good ratio of units in the box. For the inevitability overpriced resin, I'll look to 3d prints rather than £60 Forge World minis.

For the inevitability overpriced resin, I'll look to 3d prints rather than £60 Forge World minis.

Taking the opportunity to plug Highlands Miniatures here, who have announced a range of STLs for October that make for better Nehekharan stand-ins than the old GW skeleton kit.
I get that 3d prints are not for everyone, but I suspect these kits are going to be a very common sight in TOW games if the official option is as Valrak suggests.

TOW is not only picking up on miniature nostalgia, it also bring back the classic slow paced release of the 90s and lack of information. Good times.
Perhaps they will start selling stuff with mail order troll again.

 Fayric wrote:
TOW is not only picking up on miniature nostalgia, it also bring back the classic slow paced release of the 90s and lack of information. Good times.
Perhaps they will start selling stuff with mail order troll again.

This amused me perhaps more than it should have.

Mozzamanx wrote:

For the inevitability overpriced resin, I'll look to 3d prints rather than £60 Forge World minis.

Taking the opportunity to plug Highlands Miniatures here, who have announced a range of STLs for October that make for better Nehekharan stand-ins than the old GW skeleton kit.
I get that 3d prints are not for everyone, but I suspect these kits are going to be a very common sight in TOW games if the official option is as Valrak suggests.

Spoiler:

Love that design a lot! Between the awful 5th Skeletons and a potential modern kit by GW that will most likely Flanderize it too much for my taste (going by the teasers we got so far), those minis are right in the sweet spot for me!

I was reading the comments on the latest 40th anneversary video and I found a comment about the TOW release date the following response has been written:

"Only 2 more weeks until we find out...!"

Maybe just high hopes, but I am keen tó know what Will happen.

2 more weeks until they will tell us the estimate release date
how thrilling

 kodos wrote:
2 more weeks until they will tell us the estimate release date
how thrilling

Would you rather they didn't tell you or provide any meaningful update?

by now I would really like that they say nothing if they don't have to say anything official

comments on FB/YT/etc. with "soon we tell you more" are worth nothing
as the last time they told us more, it was an article with a lot of words and no information

I expect that in 2 weeks there will be another article telling us that TOW will see a release "sooner than we think"

Not sure if the aforementioned video comments were prompted by the same thing in different format, but it looks suspicious that in the 40 years of Warhammer article number 38 it says "we’re finally at our penultimate stop". Who makes 39 nine entries in a series about 40 years of something? Yeah, yeah, I know. But once a year I get to say even GW isn't so dumb, and I choose for this to be 2023's occasion to say it.

That 40th article would have been released in the same week as the Warhammer Day preview two weeks from now. Unless that's the article writer making a mistake, it kind of looks like the thing is supposed to lead up to Warhammer Day. Doesn't have to mean anything for The Old World even if true, of course, but as is so often noted, GW marketing is fairly straightforward. 40 years of Warhammer means Fantasy specifically. Article series starts early in the year and leads up to a point where there just so happens to be a preview show?

The Old World marketing has not been a stellar effort, to put it politely. It's entirely reasonable to believe that even if Old World gets a preview for Warhammer Day, that it's going to be as lousy as every other one we got so far. But considering the coinciding article series, GW would have to purposely aim for a whole new level of failure if there was no substance to such an as of yet hypothetical preview.

In cruel twist of fate, reviewers will rip open their new shiny copies of the Legions Imperialis launch set and find - staring back at them...

...a beautiful hardback copy of The Old World core rule book.

 Geifer wrote:
40 years of Warhammer means Fantasy specifically.

used to be, might also just mean 40 years of "the warhammer hobby"

Yeah last weeks entry in the series was a 40k model for example. People linking the 40 weeks to TOW may be overthinking it a bit.

If it is a TOW preview, I am ready to be whelmed - a video made up of some quick panning shots of a table setup mid battle featuring 20+ year old plastics, a dramatic montage of half-glimpsed roundtable shots of the new resin Bretonnian and Tomb Kings characters, slow fade-in followed by rapid detail shots of the two new upcoming plastic kits that were semi-spoiled, cut to a black screen as "The Old World" logo/title fades into the foreground, cut to a quick succession of rapid-cuts as dramatic music intensifies, cut to a dramatic setup of the two armies facing eachother down, cut to black screen - "Coming Soon". Maybe they'll be so bold as to give us a release date.

Then we get to listen to the presenters gush about how great the 20+ year old models are and how nostalgic they are for WHFB for 10 minutes while offering us little additional information of value.

Pretty obvious where this is all leading to : they're ending with what started it all, the good old Warhammer Fantasy Battle rememberance day. That's why MG fans are getting sweaty, since their biggest threat is coming back...Nah, just joking. It doesn't necessarily lead to a TOW release date - though it would certainly be a good opportunity to do so, delays are what they are, can't control much of that nowadays.

To me, it's quite crystal clear what they want to end that 40 years series with.