Silly situation with the Necromunda Tactics Cards again

[phaidknott 7023xp 5]

Well just got my email from my local store that I’ll not be getting my Esher and Slave Ogryn Tactics cards due to the amount they were allocated from GW. GW actually sold out on the Esher Tactic cards within 10 minutes, the two GW “direct only cards” packs sold out 10 minutes later than that.

Seem completely daft that GW continue to order such small amount from the manufacturer on these (it’s a situation that been going on for years now, and just seems to be getting worse and worse). I must admit I’ve not taken the leap into Blood Bowl as it’s a similar situation and if you didn’t get these on the day they launched on the webstore you can’t get them (so lost revenue for GW there).

I imagine it’s costing all the independent retailers as well because although GW “cuts off” their pre-orders when they get out of stock, the indies don’t know how many GW will deign to give them (so they incur card merchant fees on making the refunds), and it costs them the time and effort to contact the customers to let them know.

Still I wonder how many here have also missed out on these cards this time around (we can cry into our coffees together), but worry not there’s a eBay scalper here in the UK who managed to get three copies of each (although it’s supposed to be 1 per customer) selling them at £75 a pop (before GW has even sent them out).

Looking at getting some blank business cards for a home inkject and printing my own (and selling what I have on eBay), OR I might just sell my whole Necromunda Collection on eBay and call it a day (I am a bit of a completionist when it comes to having all the rules for a game) I’m just getting fed up and annoyed at GW with their attempt to go all MTG with the cards (instead of printing them in the books, BTW the GW Direct card packs have rules not available in any of the rule books).

 

…I’ll shut up and stop ranting now 🙁

[limburger 21704xp 1]

This has sort of become standard for Necromunda releases hasn’t it ?
Knowing how limited the card sets for previous Necromunda releases were I didn’t even feel tempted to buy into these new gangs/expansions. And that kind of makes me sad, because I do wonder how that game is going to stay alive with the way GW handles it.

Warhammer Underworlds appears to have a similar treatment. Lots of teams that are ‘web-only’ (which IMHO is a death sentence) and only stuff from the latest ‘season’ appears to be available (in very limited amounts).

With WarCry it kind of made sense as the cardpacks for non-chaos factions were there more as a diversion and not an official part of the game, but at least we got the stats (eventually) in the books (although I think a few are still missing).

I’m tempted to think that someone within GW wants products like Necromunda to bleed out …

 

[sundancer 42972xp 1]

I’m tempted to think that someone within GW wants products like Necromunda to bleed out …

No, I don’t think that… but artificial shortage keeps the hype up which is free advertising. That being said: I don’t want to be in a business that’s producing things in high demand… either you produce to little and everybody hates you for not getting their toy timely or you do too much and are stuck with surplus stock.

[mageParticipant 20596xp 1]

It wouldn’t kill them to do a very basic, cheap as chips app for keeping track of things and maybe charge… 20 to 50 pence for a one time download and keep the updates free. Way cheaper than buying all the cards at retail, keep the updates free and save people going to the expense and time of making their own or tracking them down and getting overcharged.

[totsuzenheniParticipant 5651xp 0]

Print On Demand?

[phaidknott 7023xp 3]

I don’t know if GW will ever do anything about the situation. It’s been going on for years now (not just with Necromunda but with other games like Blood Bowl and even 40K), they seem to be happy to do these “limited” releases ad infinatum.

 

It’s a shame as it’s causing frustration for the customers, the independent retailers etc. The “scalping” aspect is thriving and they are getting very organised about it (found one comic store in London with an eBay account selling six copies at 5X RRP of the “1 per customer” items, so they’ve found a way around that restriction). I keep going on about this, but it really annoys me that the ads are going up before they’ve even shipped them out.

 

GW do nothing, make no comment and don’t seem to feel the urge to do anything about it. That is my mind is amazingly poor customer service 🙁

[somegeezer 18431xp 2]

It’s a shame. I’m hopeful their stiffing the scalpers over Indomitus could be the start of acknowledging this is a problem and doing something about it. OTOH it’s GW so I won’t hold my breath.

I’llprobably not help matters by preordering the Orlock stuff direct from them. Sorry everyone.

[limburger 21704xp 1]

@sundancer I agree … I wouldn’t be in their shoes given that you can’t ever produce ‘enough’.
And at the same time there must be a more consumer/community friendly system for this stuff.

@somegeezer I’d argue that Indomitus was easy to solve, because they were going to do new starter sets so all they needed was an extra set of books and boxes to do these ‘build on demand’ versions.

I’ve not seen them do anything about the cards for any of their systems. These things are always limited editions you can only get if you’re lucky enough to be first in line. They’ve also painted themselves into a corner because the things are used in ‘competitive’ games so you can bet that stat changes are needed which would invalidate any printed products that are over stocked.

The weird thing is … a lot of their plastic (usually whatever they don’t want to sell like Gobbos on spiders) are ‘web-only’ so they are able to do a ‘print on demand’ for those things already.

[jam800Member 154xp 2]

Unfortunately my love for GW games has waned over the years and I have little interest in AoS or 40k but when they started to produce the specialist games I got very excited.

I jumped in on Necromunda as soon as it released in 2017. Unfortunately the slow release schedule combined with limited print runs on the cards quickly killed local enthusiasm for this game. Now folk appear a little reticent to pick up any new release for these specialist games because of this.

Whilst access into these games is relatively easy, it is very difficult to flesh out your games with the accessories. So far I’ve seen bloodbowl, necromunda and adeptus titanicus all die on the vine. Few bothered with Aeronautica Imperialis because of the short term support issues and I recently started looking into it but you can no longer get the Rynn’s world book, or battke zone, nor can you get hold of the Ork Air Waaagh card pack.

I’m sure most folk can accept a slower release schedule but it’s a little disappointing to see current options limited when you want to jump into a game purely due to discontinuation of product and ultimately puts new players off. As it seems you either have to invest on day one and continue full throttle support, or simply let the whole game system pass you by.

As a result many seem to be doing the latter unfortunately.

[limburger 21704xp 1]

At least there’s a Necromunda videogame being released … so you can play that.

but yeah … it sucks that the support for anything that isn’t AoS or 40k is spotty at best.
And as I’ve mentioned before the support for factions within those main lines ranges from ‘always getting new stuff’ to ‘barely supported with models dating back to late ’90’s … ).

The sad thing is that even Killteam (although it is specicially listed as an option for smaller skirmishes in 9th edition)  doesn’t get the support it deserves. Never mind the apocalupse rules designed for really big games of 40k (also mentioned … but effectively unavailable).

It is sad that a potentially great game like Necromunda can’t attract new players, because it is effectively impossible to get started. And at the same time the few that remain loyal have to fight each other just to get the bits they might want to make the game more interesting long term.

It sucks that GW is either too blind to see the effect this has on the community for the game.
Or they are deliberately sabotaging their own (specialist) games in order to prevent them from becoming as big as their main lines.

[angelicdespot 4689xp 1]

What I find so frustrating about this is that it seems like a problem with a relatively easy solution and no downside to anyone in providing it. Lots of companies print cards cheaply. I get that it’s not GW’s ‘thing’ and that there’s a cost to getting distracted by non-core lines of business. But come on… Lots of their games needs cards. Print on Demand has been a thing for a long time.

I can’t see how GW wouldn’t gain from excited customers being able to buy stuff needed (desired) to facilitate gaming with the minis they produce rather than bitching about not being able to do so.

This seems like a situation that benefits absolutely no one (but scalpers).

[craigwrdouglas 2306xp 0]

Yep.

This particular time didn’t affect me, (I have the starter box, but never built the minis or got started with Necromunda)

with the cards I’d expect that they would just be an order in thing from a printer rather than something that takes factory time, however they it would be nice if GW could confirm one way or another whether there will be a reprint ( it would probably take until wed for the people that make a decision are able to due to working hours and bank holiday but putting the question out there on social media would certainly help)

BB components like winter pitches etc… do tend to come back in stock months later, however I’m advised by gw that often  this is due to unsold stock from Aus being returned to the UK warehouse  (as with Space Hulk 4th)

 

[sundancer 42972xp 1]

We’ve got a spammer again! We really need a “report user spam” button @nakchak @tgu3

[kiranamida 5791xp 0]

I feel this pain. I put an order in on the OTT store literally days before the Aircraft and Aces card packs from the first wave of Aeronautica Imperialis went NLA from GW themselves and I ended up scrambling all over the web to find some I stock before the disappeared entirely.

I enjoy AI but it makes me hesitent to think about getting into any other baxed games because of what a pain it’ll be to get a hold of the pieces for it. It’s a shame as I love the look of Adeptus Titanicus and Blackstone Fortress but I’m not sure I can make the commitment to them/wont be dissapointed by the walls I’ll encounter trying to get I to them.

[moonunitParticipant 4505xp 0]

Buy the minis, as they are awesome, play in the setting, but use third party rules. Or check out Yacktribes.

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