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 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

Because again, time investment and money vs the pressing of a button.

Just as LotR famously didn't produce any hobbyists because watching a few films =/= same level of effort as wargaming? We're not claiming 1 million people are ready to leap onto ToW due to games, but it's absurd to say that a popular series of games delivering an IP to a large number of new people isn't going to meaningfully effect the numbers looking into the hobby.

 Ahtman wrote:
Considering the nature of the project I'm surprised so many people thought every old faction was going to get a full rule set and miniatures release.

Given that GW literally TOLD us what the plan was I'm surprised by this as well.
All these people have to do is read what GW has said. Instead they go off on wishlist tangents that only result in thier disappointment.

Likewise I've also been surprised by the # of times I've had to correct people concerning if faction xyz can be played.
Yes, I will be able to use my Skaven..... I know this because GW told me so.

Hopefully the next factions after TK and Bretonnians are Empire and Warriors of Chaos. Both are kinda integral to the old world setting, and I don't think it would be wise to have people waiting on those two for very long.

I collected WHF a bit back in the 2000s when I was in middle school. I didn't actually play the game, I always found that it looked too complicated, and looking at some of the rules previews it doesn't look like this has changed. Nostalgia has a strong pull though and I might end up collecting anyway.

I wonder how fast the boxes will sell out. I think they will go faster than some people think.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Timmy's daddy is just as capable of going down to the store to buy stuff from GWs competitors and 3D printers as Timmy is. GW still doesn't want that to happen, it wants to sell those minis to new players, not the legacy WHFB gamers.

and this is why Timmys Daddy is sitting around and waiting for GW to bring the game back, not playing something else just in case of not wasting the time and not be distracted when it finally happened

those people that want to do that buy something else have already done so, and in certain regions the other games/models are doing well
but there are regions were people still hesitated to even look at something else because it would be a waste of time the moment Warhammer comes back, and those people are now celebrating because they can say to themselves they were right (and call those idiots that said Warhammer will never return) and are happy to go out and buy both armies and whatever amount of books is necessary to play

and those people is GWs target group (same with Epic, those that can 3D print and use other rules were never the target of the new release)

chaos0xomega wrote:

The impetus for TOW was the success of Total War Warhammer. It brought many people into the GW hobby, but quite a few were turned away by the lack of minis and factions they could recognize from the video game. These people do not have 10 year old armies collecting dust waiting for the rules to release, and GW wants to fix that.

and yet with what GW is doing now they don#t make it easier for new people to get into that game
Army size, model quality/design, number of books, availability of models, nothing of those problems is solved with the re-release compared to 8th, the only unkwon are rules/quality/balance and price
if the price also goes with 8th edi level it does not really matter any more of the rules are better, you won#t have many new people starting the game and it will only exist to prevent certain people to wander off


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RustyNumber wrote:
Just as LotR famously didn't produce any hobbyists because watching a few films =/= same level of effort as wargaming? We're not claiming 1 million people are ready to leap onto ToW due to games, but it's absurd to say that a popular series of games delivering an IP to a large number of new people isn't going to meaningfully effect the numbers looking into the hobby.

and LotR had 2 things going for it, good rules combined with low price
the moment GW raised the price to be on the same level as their other games, it stopped not many new people started and a lot of people stopped playing (not just "Ic don't support GW by pirating their material to play and promote the game, but actually stopped playing and never returned)

but there is still a chance that were are surprised by the prices of TOW and the new Army Boxes are less than 150€

 RustyNumber wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

Because again, time investment and money vs the pressing of a button.

Just as LotR famously didn't produce any hobbyists because watching a few films =/= same level of effort as wargaming? We're not claiming 1 million people are ready to leap onto ToW due to games, but it's absurd to say that a popular series of games delivering an IP to a large number of new people isn't going to meaningfully effect the numbers looking into the hobby.

Slight difference between a massive and well loved series of books and incredibly well received movie trilogy and a video game, don't you think?

 kodos wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

The impetus for TOW was the success of Total War Warhammer. It brought many people into the GW hobby, but quite a few were turned away by the lack of minis and factions they could recognize from the video game. These people do not have 10 year old armies collecting dust waiting for the rules to release, and GW wants to fix that.

and yet with what GW is doing now they don#t make it easier for new people to get into that game
Army size, model quality/design, number of books, availability of models, nothing of those problems is solved with the re-release compared to 8th, the only unkwon are rules/quality/balance and price
if the price also goes with 8th edi level it does not really matter any more of the rules are better, you won#t have many new people starting the game and it will only exist to prevent certain people to wander off

I agree - from everything we've seen, this isn't a new to the hobby ruleset at all. But it doesn't need to be, GW already have products that do that and a well established and successful process. One of the big failures of Kirby era GW was to assume 2 products catered to all tastes and market segments, which simply isn't the case.

 Egyptian Space Zombie wrote:
I wonder how fast the boxes will sell out. I think they will go faster than some people think.

Really hard to say without knowing how many they've made. Most GW boxes do sell out rather quickly and this is a come-back of a beloved former core-game so they will probably sell fast. On the other hand, the vast majority of us don't play/collect Bretonnia or Tomb Kings. I'm guessing the Bretonnia box sells out day one and the Tomb Kings box lasts a week.

A bit more worried about the rulebook. It would be unfortunate if GW made a miscalculation there and that sold out the first week. Hopefully they made like a million or something so that they can keep it in stock indefinitely

 Ohman wrote:
A bit more worried about the rulebook. It would be unfortunate if GW made a miscalculation there and that sold out the first week. Hopefully they made like a million or something so that they can keep it in stock indefinitely

But GW don't like stock. They like to sell out of the first batch instantly keeping the fomo buying culture alive. Then the second batch of prints come late enough that the stock lasts long enough till the next newer bestest ever version is released.

Unless its a complete flop I think it will sell out very quickly.

I mean I'm torn between this idea that GW are selling ancient minis that are prompting in me the negativity I expected - and people online who seem to be desperate to get hold of them. But I suspect the second will win out - partly because I don't think there will be that many copies.

The idea GW will have printed a million copies of the rules seems well... faintly ludicrous. But then I find a lot of the debates on logistics here a bit optimistic. The idea GW can bring out effectively 9 armies - and handle the printing and distributing them all round the world - strikes me as completely at odds with history. They can't manage that with flagship 40k products.

I assume GW will continue pushing their strategy of creating artificial scarcity to manipulate cusomers into believing the product is worth more than its actual value. If they are successful, the price is not going to matter much.

https://fourweekmba.com/scarcity-principle/

They're releasing as epubs as well. How can you maintain artificial scarcity when there will be infinite digital copies?

I meant those army boxes. I don't even take these "outdated paper weights 2 weeks from release" books into account.

 Hellebore wrote:
They're releasing as epubs as well. How can you maintain artificial scarcity when there will be infinite digital copies?

Cyel wrote:
I meant those army boxes. I don't even take these "outdated paper weights 2 weeks from release" books into account.

Except for those of us with small phones and ageing eyesight. I can't read and digest a set of rules from a phone. A book is how I need my rules fix. Artificial scarcity is a thing with GW for those of us that need outdated paperweights.

Fair point, I guess others' eyesight isn't getting better from using the phones either.

I think the optimum solution is a tablet + free app (like the ones for ASOIAF or Warmachine). Big enough to make reading and navigating rules easy, but always upto date. Expensive too, but I guess when we see the prices for all the books, it may not feel as expensive in comparison.

Btw, my opinion is based on some KT games, one in particular, when I had to tell my book-using Hierotek Circle opponent "this is not not how this rule works now, please stop referring to the book" like 10 times...

And I guess it's the example of what Gabe Newell famously said, that piracy is not the fault of the price, it's the fault of the service. At one point one of the guys in our group wanted to give away some of his KT books... and nobody wanted them, even for free.

 Ahtman wrote:
Since we're setting ourselves up for disappointment with wild speculation about future releases I want to see a new Empire War Wagon, not a steam tank.

I want them to bring back the 6E Tinker Chart, so that we can put the War Wagon ON the Steam Tank!

Tyel wrote:

The idea GW will have printed a million copies of the rules seems well... faintly ludicrous. But then I find a lot of the debates on logistics here a bit optimistic.

Just to be clear, I don't think they actually made 1.000.000 rulebooks. Just saying it would be unfortunate if they ran out of them with a rules-centered release like this.

Tyel wrote:
The idea GW can bring out effectively 9 armies - and handle the printing and distributing them all round the world - strikes me as completely at odds with history. They can't manage that with flagship 40k products.

It would be a very special situation if GW suddenly released a full game system without having models to go with most of the factions. Especially when there is a market of second hand armies of the old yet official models, as well as a big market of third party generic fantasy models.
It would be a huge shift in GWs no model-no rules policy.
Most of the stuff might not be in the stores, but surely, they will sell their models.

Edit: Oh, sorry, I guess you talked about managing to have a decent stock for the 9 armies, not to have them marketed. My bad, should read the full post.

 Fayric wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The idea GW can bring out effectively 9 armies - and handle the printing and distributing them all round the world - strikes me as completely at odds with history. They can't manage that with flagship 40k products.

It would be a very special situation if GW suddenly released a full game system without having models to go with most of the factions. Especially when there is a market of second hand armies of the old yet official models, as well as a big market of third party generic fantasy models.
It would be a huge shift in GWs no model-no rules policy.
Most of the stuff might not be in the stores, but surely, they will sell their models.

HH isn’t NMNR, with loads of stuff being unavailable on launch (or even now), and some of the other specialist games aren’t too strict on it either (e.g. Necromunda).

Will be interesting to see though if they drop all the factions at once, or just the ones they’re focusing on.

I can see all the old plastics CoC back immediately, but perhaps the metals/failcasts will wait.

On another note, new article:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/12/29/old-world-almanack-the-noble-history-of-the-tomb-kings-of-khemri/

Not a huge amount there, but sets up the initial conflict and ‘why Border Princes?’.

Also a hint perhaps that HE will feature relatively soon?

Amusingly told from the TK perspective as well

MaxT wrote:

 kodos wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

The impetus for TOW was the success of Total War Warhammer. It brought many people into the GW hobby, but quite a few were turned away by the lack of minis and factions they could recognize from the video game. These people do not have 10 year old armies collecting dust waiting for the rules to release, and GW wants to fix that.

and yet with what GW is doing now they don#t make it easier for new people to get into that game
Army size, model quality/design, number of books, availability of models, nothing of those problems is solved with the re-release compared to 8th, the only unkwon are rules/quality/balance and price
if the price also goes with 8th edi level it does not really matter any more of the rules are better, you won#t have many new people starting the game and it will only exist to prevent certain people to wander off

I agree - from everything we've seen, this isn't a new to the hobby ruleset at all. But it doesn't need to be, GW already have products that do that and a well established and successful process. One of the big failures of Kirby era GW was to assume 2 products catered to all tastes and market segments, which simply isn't the case.

While I agree that this is a "mature gamers game" and not marketed to hobby newcomers, I disagree with kodos assessment that it won't be easy for new people to get into the game.

While model quality/design will be an issue for many (not all, but certainly true with Khemri), the fact that they are clearly intent on releasing modern plastics for the game (foot knights, big new centerpiece kit for each faction) indicates that this is a "now" problem and not a "forever" problem.

Number of books is a nothingburger to me - Battletech is a game that has an impossibly large and sprawling number of books needed to capture all the possible rules of the game yet has no issues attracting more newcomers than ever before despite that. Yes there are various resources and different ways of playing that help reduce that a good bit, but the "full experience" inevitably results in BT players collecting a small libraries worth of publications to pull together all the relevant bits they want to use for their games. If this was being marketed as a 40k/AoS like competitive pick up and go game this would maybe be a concern from a convenience standpoint, but its not and I don't see that becoming a barrier for entry for newcomers who don't really know any better anyway (especially when many new players are likely familiar with D&D and RPGs which are also a book-heavy experience).

Availability of models I don't really understand - GW are re-releasing all the relevant models, they might not all be ready to go on release but thats kind of the point of relaunching the game, isn't it? The models will be available, it won't be hard for players to get them.

Army size, and the costs associated, is the only potential sticking point... but gotta be honest, I don't see it. If TOW follows the HH pricing standards, I feel like it will end up being cheaper to build a TOW army than most 40k/Age of Sigmar armies. They are going to be selling peasant bowmen and men-at-arms in boxes of 32 and 36 models, respectively, for example. Dunno what it costs yet, but I don't that they go for more than ~$80/box. If the bretonnian and TK launch boxes land at the $310 price point to match the AoD box like I'm expecting, I will be stunned at GWs brazenness in charging modern prices for ancient minis, but also thats 60% of your army for $300 or less from discounters, and if you're playing 1500 pts instead of 2000 (as many intend to) you only need to shell out a few dollars more for an extra unit or two.

Tyel wrote:
Unless its a complete flop I think it will sell out very quickly.
I mean I'm torn between this idea that GW are selling ancient minis that are prompting in me the negativity I expected - and people online who seem to be desperate to get hold of them. But I suspect the second will win out - partly because I don't think there will be that many copies.
The idea GW will have printed a million copies of the rules seems well... faintly ludicrous. But then I find a lot of the debates on logistics here a bit optimistic. The idea GW can bring out effectively 9 armies - and handle the printing and distributing them all round the world - strikes me as completely at odds with history. They can't manage that with flagship 40k products.

But they do? As I stated somewhere in the past couple pages, they release an army for both 40k and AoS at an average pace of slightly less than 1/month - each. From the launch of 10th edition through spring 2024 there will be 9 faction releases for 40k according to the roadmap, plus the edition launch itself, and then going into and through the summer another 3 on top of that. They released 11 factions for 40k in 2022. The Age of Sigmar roadmap has been similar with 11 factions (including FEC & the ironjawz mini-update) over the course of 2023. Throw in all the Warcry and Kill Team and Underworlds stuff on top of that. Plus the end-of-edition narrative books for 40k coming out of 2022 going into 2023, and for AoS over the past couple months going into next year as well. Throw HH, Necromunda, LI, AT, AI, Blood Bowl and all the other games in on top of that. GW has more than demonstrated the ability to deliver a very dense slate of products. Meeting the needs of the 9 factions for TOW is a drop in the bucket by comparison.

Focusing on just 40k and AoS - every one of those faction releases (lets call it an average of about 22 releases combined/year) has entailed a relaunch of the entire existing model range for each faction into new packaging, plus a number of brand new kits added to that faction (often 1, but in some cases the add has been a double-digit number of new kits). In total, you're talking about GW needing to release and deliver something like ~500 SKUs annually for these two games alone on average based on some quick back of the envelope math, even that might be a bit light). Then theres all the forgeworld stuff which I'm not even considering.

Lets contextualize that into TOW based on what we know:

1 core rulebook
2 big army books
9 arcane tomes
2 launch boxes (bretonnia and khemri, for now I assume the others won't get them but even if they do +7 SKUs, nothing groundbreaking)
7 plastic Bretonnian kits (including the ones found in the launch box)
6 resin/metal Bretonnian kits
5 plastic Tomb Kings kits (including the ones found in the launch box)
4 resin/metal Tomb Kings kits (assuming all the other minis shown in the tomb kings reveal were resin)

So far, 36 SKUs of which only 12 are actually distinct plastic kits. That is *nothing*. Im sure there are more resin/metal kits to be had than what we are aware of, probably more plastic, but this gives us a pretty good baseline to extrapolate what we can expect for the other 7. Averaging Bretonnia and TK out, we're looking at a total of 54 plastic kits put into production to cover these 9 factions, which basically assumes that Beastmen and Warriors of Chaos get ~6 new kits apiece since most/all of their plastics are already currently in production and would presumably just need to be reboxed. In truth, some of these factions I think are a bit more unit dense so I expect the final number by end of year to be closer to 70 plastic kits. Either way, GW taking longer than ~12 months to get model ranges for all 9 factions out would be, in my mind, a demonstration of gross incompetence - this should be relatively trivial for them based on these numbers.

While model quality/design will be an issue for many (not all, but certainly true with Khemri), the fact that they are clearly intended on releasing modern plastics for the game (foot knights, big new centerpiece kit for each faction) indicates that this is a "now" problem and not a "forever" problem.

but if those are in addition and not replacing the old lines, it is the same "forever" problem that already prevented those lines from selling in past Edtions.
Why did no one played Khemri in the old days despite having new modern plastic units and new centerpiece models, right because the old core models were not replaced

Number of books is a nothingburger to me - Battletech is a game that has an impossibly large and sprawling number of books needed to capture all the possible rules of the game yet has no issues attracting more newcomers than ever before despite that. Yes there are various resources and different ways of playing that help reduce that a good bit, but the "full experience" inevitably results in BT players collecting a small libraries worth of publications to pull together all the relevant bits they want to use for their games.

and now you compare how the rules are split among the books and how much they cost
if the Journal books only contain magic items and other stuff that can only be used by the armies of infamy in the journal, it won't be a problem but if those are for the grand army as well it will.
BT works differently as the we have background only books and the equipment for the standard mechs is not in a different book

Availability of models I don't really understand - GW are re-releasing all the relevant models, they might not all be ready to go on release but thats kind of the point of relaunching the game, isn't it? The models will be available, it won't be hard for players to get them.

remains to be seen, by now they only showed us a limited amount and no word if everything else will be available at the same time from those 2 armies
and a good chance the resin models will be mailorder only

Army size, and the costs associated, is the only potential sticking point... but gotta be honest, I don't see it. If TOW follows the HH pricing standards, I feel like it will end up being cheaper to build a TOW army than most 40k/Age of Sigmar armies. They are going to be selling peasant bowmen and men-at-arms in boxes of 32 and 36 models, respectively, for example. Dunno what it costs yet, but I don't that they go for more than ~$80/box. If the bretonnian and TK launch boxes land at the $310 price point to match the AoD box like I'm expecting, I will be stunned at GWs brazenness in charging modern prices for ancient minis, but also thats 60% of your army for $300 or less from discounters, and if you're playing 1500 pts instead of 2000 (as many intend to) you only need to shell out a few dollars more for an extra unit or two.

first I doubt that low points will remain as a standard for long (if at all), simply because those with existing armies want to use all their toys (main reason why 2500-3000 points became standard in 8th) and depending on what stuff like the Dragon costs in points, people won't leave their shiny new model behind and buy something else because it won't fit 1500 but rather expand to whatever is needed to use it.

For the pricing, well GW is asking 120€ for the battle of Macragge box and however thought that is a good idea might also think that taking ebay prices as base is a good idea as well

 kodos wrote:

While model quality/design will be an issue for many (not all, but certainly true with Khemri), the fact that they are clearly intended on releasing modern plastics for the game (foot knights, big new centerpiece kit for each faction) indicates that this is a "now" problem and not a "forever" problem.

but if those are in addition and not replacing the old lines, it is the same "forever" problem that already prevented those lines from selling in past Edtions.
Why did no one played Khemri in the old days despite having new modern plastic units and new centerpiece models, right because the old core models were not replaced

My point is that the intent is to eventually replace. The new lord on pegasus is a replacement for a very old metal mini, for example, as are a couple of the previewed resin minis. It will take time, but it will get there.

first I doubt that low points will remain as a standard for long (if at all), simply because those with existing armies want to use all their toys (main reason why 2500-3000 points became standard in 8th) and depending on what stuff like the Dragon costs in points, people won't leave their shiny new model behind and buy something else because it won't fit 1500 but rather expand to whatever is needed to use it.

what I can say is that, locally, most of the old WHFB players that are picking this up don't want to play anything more than 1000-1500 points. They hated 7th/8th edition 2000-2500 point meta and have no desire to return to that.

I personally, generally prefer larger games in all the miniatures games I play. BUT because the standard table size available to me has become 6x4 (whereas when I was actively playing WHFB we played on 8x4), I am reluctant myself to play anything more than 1500pts, I feel that 2000 pts is potentially pushing it but am willing to give it a try. Anything more than that though and theres no point in even really playing the game anymore, as you basically line up your entire army shoulder to shoulder and theres no longer any room for maneuver or any hope of being able to get flank attacks against your opponent - especially if you have any amount of terrain on the table. The smaller games are more interesting because they allow room for maneuver and still allow you to have interesting terrain setups that don't render the game unplayable.

chaos0xomega wrote:
But they do? As I stated somewhere in the past couple pages, they release an army for both 40k and AoS at an average pace of slightly less than 1/month - each. From the launch of 10th edition through spring 2024 there will be 9 faction releases for 40k according to the roadmap, plus the edition launch itself, and then going into and through the summer another 3 on top of that. They released 11 factions for 40k in 2022. The Age of Sigmar roadmap has been similar with 11 factions (including FEC & the ironjawz mini-update) over the course of 2023. Throw in all the Warcry and Kill Team and Underworlds stuff on top of that. Plus the end-of-edition narrative books for 40k coming out of 2022 going into 2023, and for AoS over the past couple months going into next year as well. Throw HH, Necromunda, LI, AT, AI, Blood Bowl and all the other games in on top of that. GW has more than demonstrated the ability to deliver a very dense slate of products. Meeting the needs of the 9 factions for TOW is a drop in the bucket by comparison.

I'm not sure GW have demonstrated the ability to deliver a dense slate of products. We've had shortages and delays all over the place.
GW is still going to be producing 40k, AoS, Warcry, Kill Team, etc etc - so this would be in addition to all that. I think 70 SKUs is a lot.

Horus Heresy came out 18 months ago and has about half the kits you are talking about here. So we'd be talking about a 300% faster rollout.

chaos0xomega wrote:

My point is that the intent is to eventually replace. The new lord on pegasus is a replacement for a very old metal mini, for example, as are a couple of the previewed resin minis. It will take time, but it will get there.

well, that is very very old model and was not even part with the last lineup (when the plastic Knight on Pegasus in 6th came with the codex, the dedicated Hero on Pegasus model was gone), I would not count that as replacing an old model with a new one but rather adding a model for a list entry that did not have a model
otherwise the Knights on Foot are also counted as replacing old models and not a new unit which would mean there is not a single new unit with re-release but just replacements for very old models

and those are still metal models, no hint that the outdated plastic is going to replaced with new ones or that GW even thinks about it

You're not sure that GW has demonstrated the ability to deliver 70 SKUs even though they deliver 500 annually for just their two flagship games?

Really??

As for HH, I count 39 plastic kits delivered so far (plus a few bundles and a whole lotta resin). Key difference between HH and TOW though is that 30 of those 39 kits were brand new and had to be tooled, which is usually around a ~6 month process on its own and one of the known bottlenecks of GWs manufacturing operation. That alone will limit the pace of GWs releases. In TOWs case however, taking those averages, we're looking at ~40-41 returning kits and 13-14 new kits to put the 9 legacy factions back out. Working with HH as a basis of comparison - 30 new kits over an 18 month period works out to 1.66 new plastic kits/month, or about 20 new kits per year. Based on that, GW *should* have more than enough ample bandwidth to support the estimated content slate for the 9 returning TOW factions, and then some.

 kodos wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

My point is that the intent is to eventually replace. The new lord on pegasus is a replacement for a very old metal mini, for example, as are a couple of the previewed resin minis. It will take time, but it will get there.

well, that is very very old model and was not even part with the last lineup (when the plastic Knight on Pegasus in 6th came with the codex, the dedicated Hero on Pegasus model was gone), I would not count that as replacing an old model with a new one but rather adding a model for a list entry that did not have a model
otherwise the Knights on Foot are also counted as replacing old models and not a new unit which would mean there is not a single new unit with re-release but just replacements for very old models

and those are still metal models, no hint that the outdated plastic is going to replaced with new ones or that GW even thinks about it

I'll take your word for it, I don't remember there being knights on foot in the past but that may have been before my time. Nor do I remember the duke on pegasus being removed from production - I remember it being available on the shelf of my local store years later when I was considering a bretonnian army while I was in college (probably around 2007-2009 ish), but it could have very well just been old unsold stock, we had hundreds of old blisters and boxes of WHFB stuff sitting around until about 4-5 years ago when I helped them clear it out on ebay.

Either way, however you want to look at it I very much doubt that GW intends to keep these minis around indefinitely. I would be stunned if they weren't already working on designing replacements for some of them even while they are planning to sell us these old pieces of crap. Molds have finite lifetimes and don't last forever, usual useful life on a mold tops out at about 30 years before the metal starts to corrode to much to produce quality shots, these will be coming up on 20 yrs of age soon. In fact, I kind of expect that this re-release will probably exhaust the life of the Men-At-Arms molds (for example). Typically a steel mold with simple geometry is good for 1-1.5 million cycles maximum with really good maintenance practices and if you're willing to put up with degrading quality as it nears end of life - I doubt GW sprung for the best quality stuff or used the top end practices for tool maintenance, so lets just call it 1 million in this case, with the acknowledgement that the actual life may well be more like 750k-800k cycles). Then, figure that between ~2005 and ~2015 GW probably used around 10% of the molds cycle-life (figuring about 10k Bretonnian players worldwide, keeping in mind that the community was much smaller then and Bretonnia was not as popular as it is today, over this period who averaged 40 men-at-arms each - men-at arms are on sprues of 4, so you get 100,000 cycles to produce those 400,000 men-at arms needed to fill that estimated demand. put another way, they used to be sold in boxes of 16 each so this would mean GW produced 25k Men-At-Arms kits over a 10 year period. These numbers seem reasonable based on what I know of relative levels of popularity and sales figures, which is mostly second hand knowledge from people who had a good but incomplete idea of things - it could well be that I'm light in my estimates).

Each box of Men at Arms (as well as each starter box) for TOW now takes 9 cycles, as they come in sets of 36, so looking at the WHFB subreddit I see there are 83k subs there, and 44k members on the facebook TOW page. we'll meet in the middle and say theres 66k people in the english-language online TOW community, which makes up 20% of the total worldwide community (thats a guess, when in doubt 80/20 rule, I assume that the online community usually represents the most dedicate hardcore and engaged 20% of the community, while the majority don't follow warcom or actively engage in the hobby within the online space. I know within my circle I am one of a literal handful out of maybe 30-40 players of GW games who check warcom daily or follow forums, etc.). So the total current customer base is ~330k gamers, which will likely increase over time after the game is launched and more people get turned on to it by their friends or seeing it on the table in stores, etc. Of those, some portion will be Bretonnian customers- with Bretonnia being one of only 2 factions truly available for purchase on launch and having had a surge in popularity due to a combination of scarcity and TWW-hype, I'm going to guess that ~15% of that number will buy Bretonnian minis, so lets call it 50k would be Bretonnian customers, who will each buy 2 boxes worth of men-at-arms on average - thats 900k cycles of production on the molds right there.

Its quite likely some of my assumptions are off or high, its all just an estimated guess, but the point is that its very likely that the new game launch will result in a few hundred thousand cycles of life being taken off the molds within the next year or two alone. At that point GW will need to replace the molds - I think its unlikely that they held on to the original 3-up sculpts for these kits, and I dont even know that GW has the ability to use make kits using a pantograph anymore as they fully digitized their processes and operations over a decade ago, so the only real way to replace them would be with a completely new kit of digitally sculpted minis (unless their plan is to use 3d scanners to reproduce them digitally - but I doubt it.

Why did no one played Khemri in the old days despite having new modern plastic units and new centerpiece models, right because the old core models were not replaced

Because Vampire Counts rules were basically, "Like TK, but better.". And when TK got brought up to near VC level in 8th, VC then got another boost.

Both TK and Bretonnia were secondary tier WHF factions in terms of popularity, and I believe they were the opposite sides of the same coin: TK were too exotic and far removed from the core setting and Bretonnia was too vanilla. At least that's my impression from back then.

Younger me would certainly agree with that assessment of Bretonnia, I had no interest in them at the time because they felt overly generic and anachronistic relative to the tech level and styling of much of the rest of the setting, and their fluff in general wasn't very compelling to me and didn't seem to fit the gritty grimdark vibe of everything else. Granted, I didn't bother really reading the fluff, only the top level summaries of it online, otherwise I may have taken more interest in them. Really it wasn't until I learned, years later, about the original Bretonnian fluff (i.e. "Painted fops parade their finery amongst the mud and dung of the streets, ladies sit like dolls in shining carriages, bedecked in glittering jewels and tall, white wigs, while hiding their ghastly pox-marks and worse disfigurements behind rouge and white powder. The taint of Chaos is less apparent in Bretonnia only because its citizens remain blind to it, unbelieving and unwilling to accept its dreadful implications, hiding their fear behind extravagance and tawdry display.") that I began to appreciate the faction a bit more and understand its depth in a way which I think the actual current Bretonnian fluff wants to try to portray but struggles to do so well (and I lament what could have been if they had kept the idea of Bretonnia as being a society with a tech level similar to that of the Empire but modeled after France on the eve of revolution). There is an argument that of the main factions, the Empire was the actual outlier that didn't belong, as questing knights off arthurian myth fit in a world of dwarves and elves and vampires a good bit better than thirty years war era steam/clockpunk HRE - but thats what made the Empire so interesting and compelling as a faction, because that was distinct and different from the other generic fantasy that I had been exposed to at that point in my life which otherwise made Bretonnia seem so milquetoast and common.

I wasn't a fan of TK back then but I don't think it was because they were too exotic or removed (my first two armies were dark elves and ogre kingdoms, which are arguably more exotic and further removed). I also kinda find TK vanilla, in that they are Ray Harryhausen skeletons with the serial numbers filed off dressed up like totally-not-egyptians. In some sense I suppose they do feel slightly out of place and disconnected or disjointed from a lot of the other factions in the setting, and their overall faction concept didnt quiite fit with what were otherwise largely european (and western european at that) fantasy tropes. I think they would have been less of an outlier had there been a proper araby army, and had they featured factions like Ind/Kush that would adopt a similar regional flavor and help bridge some gaps, etc. Then again, lizardmen are similar but they always seemed pretty popular as well, though I think thats because... yknow.... lizard-people are kinda cool, as are dinos riding dinos.


My gaming group didn't have any TK or Bret players, we had one come in towards the tail end after we relocated stores (so technically I guess my group came into his group rather than the other way around) but at that point he was hanging up his lance and not interested in playing WHFB any longer so I never even really got to see them played. Later a couple new guys came in as Bretonnian "players", but they never actually played to my knowledge. They collected and painted and talked about playing but thats about it. I never really paid Bretonnia (or Khemri) much thought as a result. I find it really interesting that now that I'm older I'm actually more excited about Bretonnia than anything else, I guess tastes change as we mature. Its definitely scratching a weird nostalgia itch i've developed over the years, which is weird because not only did I not really care for Brets back then, but I also didnt much like WHFB and vastly preferred 40k (and was quite glad when AoS came around to replace it).

chaos0xomega wrote:
Its quite likely some of my assumptions are off or high, its all just an estimated guess, but the point is that its very likely that the new game launch will result in a few hundred cycles of life being taken off the molds within the next year or two alone. At that point GW will need to replace the molds - I think its unlikely that they held on to the original 3-up sculpts for these kits, and I dont even know that GW has the ability to use make kits using a pantograph anymore as they fully digitized their processes and operations over a decade ago, so the only real way to replace them would be with a completely new kit of digitally sculpted minis (unless their plan is to use 3d scanners to reproduce them digitally - but I doubt it.

I agree on your numbers and the buyers base is there for sure
question here is if GW actually plans on keeping them available in high numbers or they are going with the usual estimated production run and leave it there preparing for the next faction rather than wear the moulds out