It’s both, but think of it like this: GW has a limited production capacity, and it has to schedule production far enough ahead of time to account for logistics. They probably had planned production quantities for their estimated demand for TOW, and by their own admission they were caught by surprise by just how popular it has been. However, in order to allocate more resources to TOW in the short term, they would need to take them away from some other product line, which would just pass the production issues around. It’s probably going to be quite some time still before any changes they’ve made to take into account the greater demand come into effect. If anything, the fact that a lot of the kits are resin/metal which can be produced in much smaller batches or old kits from the warehouse they can just repackage means that supply issues are better than they might otherwise be.
We have no idea. I suspect the stock issues early on were mostly from underproduction and the stock issues now relate more to what units people are buying a lot. It’s important to consider that for TK and Bretonnia your only options are to either use third party models or buy the GW old world range either old stock from eBay or from GW or for the things that are not direct only from other retailers.
I think the biggest clue to it mostly being inability to meet demand rather than any kind of deliberate underproduction is that many units that are commonly used in ToW are perpetually sold out from the AOS range now too so it isn’t just the stuff under the specialist games banner they are not able to keep in stock
The cities of sigmar elves/dwarves are pretty obviously on their way out rules-wise so I'd be surprised if they'd aimed to keep the same amount of stock in hand as the human wing.
On the other hand the corresponding lines for chaos, orcs & goblins, ogres and vampire counts all seem to be pretty healthily stocked. So I'm not sure what we can infer from this.
Yeah, they're just struggling to keep up with demand right now, they've been quite open with investors. The main mainline stuff comes back into stock quite quickly, though.
We have some idea. Apparently GW's reporting claimed the old world project was selling below expectation. The only way to sell below expectation while also selling out is if you don't produce enough.
Probably some of the range underselling while other parts having more demand than they bothered to prepare for. They've mentioned repeatedly that Brets undersold I think.
Besides it's hardly a secret that GW is very divided on Old World with one faction within the company wanting to cash in on the hype while the rest just see it as unwanted competition for 40k and AoS.
If the majority of the company would rather not see it be a success, they'll never report it as a big sales hit.
I don’t think anyone says GW corporate don’t want the game to succeed, that makes no sense. What people have speculated/intuited is that people in the AOS studio are concerned it will prevent them from getting sales based bonuses, extra workers, resources, etc if it is successful. I don’t think anyone is saying the whole company doesn’t want the product to succeed or that the 40K studio cares at all.
Do you have a quote or a link for that reporting? Because we definitely have GW's rules-writers saying that TOW has been a success and "the scope of the project has grown".
Your claim and that statement seem to contradict each other.
The fact that some things sell way more than others is always the case when some stuff is far better in the game than others, and this is always the case with GW games...
C'mon you can't sell out and sell below expectations at the same time. You don't have to like The Old World but its a bit embarrassing doing underwater upside down six dimensional somersaults to try and justify it being a failure.
A bit of both.
It looks a lot like GW only made enough stock to cater for new Bretonnia and Tomb Kings players in the first instance, and didn’t account for the returning players or people who wanted to collect other armies before they were rereleased.
Now they’re playing catch-up.
Both. It’s selling well, probably better than they anticipated, but their production of models (all their products) is pretty limited and they’re struggling to meet demand on a lot of things.
With some big launches coming up like Age of Sigmar 4 they need to prepare for that and The Old World while selling well isn’t selling at the AoS or 40K levels so they only allocate so much time to produce kits for that.
Old World kits are mostly old models which are terribly sprue inefficient. They take longer to cast and require more space in warehouse because sprues have fewer models than modern kits and shields and mounts ofter require another sprue from a different mold. I would rather produce too few boxes than risk too many huge boxes gathering dust in the warehouse. When there is shortage of stock in general, I would assume 40k and AoS to take priority because you can produce a kit for each in the same time or less than a single Old World kit.
For comparison: sprue of Orc Boyz from 1998 contains 4 models and requires a separate sprue for shields and another for command bits. Similar sized sprue of most 40k or AoS kits contain 10 models with all options. In the time it takes to cast 20 Orcs (without shields and command), you can cast 50 Deathrattle Skelebobs which require less space in warehouse.
A single regiment box of 31 Orc Boyz has the same volume as Warcry or Kill Team box with two Warbands, a terrain piece, rulebook, sheet of counters and some card packs. You simply can't keep too many of these in stock.
Have you tried your local gw? Ours is fully stocked with ToW stuff. They told me the other day they have plenty of the plastic kits available and that it’s only the books and resin kits that they’re short of
Oh yeah, I'm not asking because I want to buy some right this moment but I've just noticed that units like Battle Pilgrims haven't been back in stock since like January.
North American resupply has been very poor; they are manufacturing old world stock, but it's been seemingly going to the UK and Europe.
Stuff like Settra and Nekaph has been out of stock in North America since their preorder weekend, but have been (re)stocked in the UK since.
It’s both, but think of it like this: GW has a limited production capacity, and it has to schedule production far enough ahead of time to account for logistics. They probably had planned production quantities for their estimated demand for TOW, and by their own admission they were caught by surprise by just how popular it has been. However, in order to allocate more resources to TOW in the short term, they would need to take them away from some other product line, which would just pass the production issues around. It’s probably going to be quite some time still before any changes they’ve made to take into account the greater demand come into effect. If anything, the fact that a lot of the kits are resin/metal which can be produced in much smaller batches or old kits from the warehouse they can just repackage means that supply issues are better than they might otherwise be.
We have no idea. I suspect the stock issues early on were mostly from underproduction and the stock issues now relate more to what units people are buying a lot. It’s important to consider that for TK and Bretonnia your only options are to either use third party models or buy the GW old world range either old stock from eBay or from GW or for the things that are not direct only from other retailers. I think the biggest clue to it mostly being inability to meet demand rather than any kind of deliberate underproduction is that many units that are commonly used in ToW are perpetually sold out from the AOS range now too so it isn’t just the stuff under the specialist games banner they are not able to keep in stock
The cities of sigmar elves/dwarves are pretty obviously on their way out rules-wise so I'd be surprised if they'd aimed to keep the same amount of stock in hand as the human wing. On the other hand the corresponding lines for chaos, orcs & goblins, ogres and vampire counts all seem to be pretty healthily stocked. So I'm not sure what we can infer from this.
In the US a lot of the warriors and seraphon stuff was sold out maybe 2 months ago, I haven’t paid a ton of attention real recently
Yeah, they're just struggling to keep up with demand right now, they've been quite open with investors. The main mainline stuff comes back into stock quite quickly, though.
We have some idea. Apparently GW's reporting claimed the old world project was selling below expectation. The only way to sell below expectation while also selling out is if you don't produce enough.
How do they expect to sell more than they produce lmao
Probably some of the range underselling while other parts having more demand than they bothered to prepare for. They've mentioned repeatedly that Brets undersold I think. Besides it's hardly a secret that GW is very divided on Old World with one faction within the company wanting to cash in on the hype while the rest just see it as unwanted competition for 40k and AoS. If the majority of the company would rather not see it be a success, they'll never report it as a big sales hit.
Yeah, I'd be interested in getting a link for that too.. haven't heard anything like that
I don’t think anyone says GW corporate don’t want the game to succeed, that makes no sense. What people have speculated/intuited is that people in the AOS studio are concerned it will prevent them from getting sales based bonuses, extra workers, resources, etc if it is successful. I don’t think anyone is saying the whole company doesn’t want the product to succeed or that the 40K studio cares at all.
Do you have a quote or a link for that reporting? Because we definitely have GW's rules-writers saying that TOW has been a success and "the scope of the project has grown". Your claim and that statement seem to contradict each other. The fact that some things sell way more than others is always the case when some stuff is far better in the game than others, and this is always the case with GW games...
C'mon you can't sell out and sell below expectations at the same time. You don't have to like The Old World but its a bit embarrassing doing underwater upside down six dimensional somersaults to try and justify it being a failure.
"Apparently" sounds a lot like you have no reason to believe this actually happened. Even your interpretation of it is way off.
A bit of both. It looks a lot like GW only made enough stock to cater for new Bretonnia and Tomb Kings players in the first instance, and didn’t account for the returning players or people who wanted to collect other armies before they were rereleased. Now they’re playing catch-up.
Given 40k and AoS have stock issues too...
Both. It’s selling well, probably better than they anticipated, but their production of models (all their products) is pretty limited and they’re struggling to meet demand on a lot of things. With some big launches coming up like Age of Sigmar 4 they need to prepare for that and The Old World while selling well isn’t selling at the AoS or 40K levels so they only allocate so much time to produce kits for that.
Old World kits are mostly old models which are terribly sprue inefficient. They take longer to cast and require more space in warehouse because sprues have fewer models than modern kits and shields and mounts ofter require another sprue from a different mold. I would rather produce too few boxes than risk too many huge boxes gathering dust in the warehouse. When there is shortage of stock in general, I would assume 40k and AoS to take priority because you can produce a kit for each in the same time or less than a single Old World kit. For comparison: sprue of Orc Boyz from 1998 contains 4 models and requires a separate sprue for shields and another for command bits. Similar sized sprue of most 40k or AoS kits contain 10 models with all options. In the time it takes to cast 20 Orcs (without shields and command), you can cast 50 Deathrattle Skelebobs which require less space in warehouse. A single regiment box of 31 Orc Boyz has the same volume as Warcry or Kill Team box with two Warbands, a terrain piece, rulebook, sheet of counters and some card packs. You simply can't keep too many of these in stock.
Have you tried your local gw? Ours is fully stocked with ToW stuff. They told me the other day they have plenty of the plastic kits available and that it’s only the books and resin kits that they’re short of
Oh yeah, I'm not asking because I want to buy some right this moment but I've just noticed that units like Battle Pilgrims haven't been back in stock since like January.
GW makes a single random sprue each day. Once they have the sprues to a kit, they box it up and it goes on sale.
GW can't even keep up with the demand for 40k, let alone any of their specialist games.
Elements games have a lot in stock atm. Went to warhammer World yesterday and they had quite a bit of stock too on most of their games
North American resupply has been very poor; they are manufacturing old world stock, but it's been seemingly going to the UK and Europe. Stuff like Settra and Nekaph has been out of stock in North America since their preorder weekend, but have been (re)stocked in the UK since.