Lost Patrol: Crypt Hunters Inspired Change

So GW came out with a new one box game called Crypt Hunters which bits the Fantasy Ultra Knight type guys against ghosts.  It uses the same hex style map structure as Lost Patrol and many other similarities.  It is not totally a reskin as they changed the Stats on the models and how they attacks are resolved but it is very similar.  It is not a bad value for the game as it has like 14 GW models for like 45 dollars including the game when the models sell separately for 55 dollars.

While the games are different, there was one change I saw that I thought could be applied immediately to Lost Patrol and totally change the way it played for the better.  This is a change to the turn structure.  In Lost Patrol second edition, the Scouts move and then new tiles are added or removed based on what they can now see.  This creates a problem that whenever a new tile is placed that is not straight to add another tile this becomes a possible spawn location.  This makes it very easy to spawn 3 genestealers directly next to a Scout every turn which means even optimally positioned Scouts are likely losing a scout half the tile.  Quickly it becomes roll a 6 or die as you lose your support and get isolated.

In Crypt Hunters, the new tile placement is at the start of the turn.  So the turn starts with placing new tiles, then the Knights move, then tiles are removed, then the ghosts act.  So if this is used in Lost Patrol, the new tiles are placed, then the scouts can move.  They get to decide if they push forward into new tiles which prevent spawning on those tiles or do they fight the stealers.  After removing the tiles which can no longer be seen after moving 2 tiles, the stealer player now needs to think about whether he wants to spawn models or move models after the progressing Scouts.  It is much harder to just stop the scouts as you cannot just drop 3 right in front of their path almost every time like before.  The stealers are more likely chasing the scouts through the jungle and using their movement across paths. 

I tried a game with these rules and while the scouts still lost, the Sergeant would have seen the dropship at the start of the next turn and it would have been in movement range if he could make two bramble moves.  I left all the carnage from the mission in the above picture.  You can see how the stealers followed the Scouts and then had to finish him off using a cross path attack.  If the curve had not been so tight, our scout Sergeant might have made it home.

Lost Patrol: Retro Rules

So I gave Lost Patrol a try tonight.  I had heard bad things about the updated rules taking an intentionally unbalanced game and making it almost unwinnable against someone who know how to play the aliens so I went Old School Rules with the Lurker Counters instead.  I was just getting a feeling for the rules and was playing myself before getting the kids involved.  Scouts went 1 for 3 tries which was not bad.  This was after the first turn Scout on the map they won.  Because of all the Y splits right near the clearing I was able to reveal tiles pretty fast, getting 20 tiles after an aggressive first turn push.  On trick for the Scouts is to get just far enough from the clearing to get some of its outgoing paths to clear and then try to retake it to draw new paths out.  Sort of cheap I know, but the Lurker player can counter it by spanning Lurkers in the region when Scouts push out.

Next time I will unpack some stealers to see how the new version plays.
Update:  Tried the new version of the rules.  These are pretty bad.  Pretty much every turn for the scouts is roll 5+ or lose a scout regardless of what you do.  It plays so bad I think I must be playing it wrong but have read the rules and discussions a couple of times.

Get a Copy of Blood Bowl Rules Before They Disappear

With a new version of Blood Bowl due soon, GW will ofcourse be trying to sell rules that are very much like the last edition.  Well you can still get a free pdf of the best version of the rules every made.

Seriously GW a 165 Dollar Boardgame

So the new GW boardgame is coming and the rumor mill says it is priced at 165 dollars.  That is pretty steep.  People are saying it is such a value since just the monopose Marines are worth like 275 dollars.  I disagree with that assessment.  Just because GW charges 30 dollars for single pose marine characters does not make that the price when bundled into a game.  Even a moderate selling game would out strip the sales numbers of all of them as individuals which spreads the tooling costs.  At first I saw the images and was interested.  Might be a fun game and maybe those cultists could get other uses some day but not being deeply involved in GW anymore I cannot count that possible us as part of the cost.  For me it is a 6 mission stand alone boardgame which could be interesting a reasonable price.  Then I saw the rumored price and was like no.  Even at 20% off it is not even close to 100 dollar level which is normally my cut off for just buying stuff.  Pretty much if I want it, I would have to buy it now and sit on it until the summer when my birthday is.  Maybe I am just to cheap or poor now for this stuff but I do not think that is the case.

I think GW is too in love with pretty models.  I think this will see great to existing fan boys but will not do much for former or possibly new customers at that price point.  GW had a hit release in the fall with the Horus Heresy so much so that they raised its price after preorders and have essentially raised it again with this release.  I will note though that they report disappointing earnings for the last half year even with that.  GW is still trying to squeeze more money out of the die hards without really thinking about bringing back others.  While they are targeting toy stores now with some things that is a very crowded space and they will probably not gain much traction there with what they are offering.

This makes me very scared about the price point for the Blood Bowl game.  If this one sells well which it will as it gives people cults which they have been after for a while and is 40K based then next one will be 175.

Does GW Really Think Only 20% Play the Games?

When GW says 20% of its customers are gamers, what do they really mean?  It is clearly not that only 20% of their customers actually ever use their miniatures for games or only 20% of their customers have any interest in the rules.  If this was the case then the Age of Sigmar update would have been pretty pointless as only a small fraction of customers would care.  There would be no reason to make such a big deal out of it.  While they might mean that only 20% of their customers say they spend more time playing than hobbying but that is not a very meaningful measure as modeling can often be done anytime while getting a game in is usually a outing or event type thing.  I think what they mean by this is that only 20% of their customers are primarily interested in playing a well written deep, tactical, and balanced game.

Understanding GWs Pricing Plan

I think I was pretty surprised to hear the price of the new lead character for the hammarines.  The model is big but most of that appears to be empty space with essentially a normal hammarine with wings held up with some thin wide spiral of magical stuff.   He also does not really appear very customizable but maybe that is the case and we are only seeing one of the possible builds with other arms/heads/wings.  Now I can only assume his statline matches his price point in awesomeness and since there are no points for balance if you buy him you do not have to worry about what you remove from your list to play him.

Chaos Dreadhold Brings the Pain

To Your Wallet.  Wow is this stuff expensive.  Seems to be at about 25 dollars per sprue.  But I do note that recently I have been looking for some plastic more traditional fantasy/medieval terrain and have not found many cheap/good options here in the states.  There are very few plastic options, the laser cut stuff seems to have to be shipped in from overseas, and the resin stuff is a bit fragile to be using with my kids.  On average the stuff seems to run about 30 dollars a piece so GW is pretty inline with that.

I have a reasonable table of 40K terrain with craters, crashed lander, and cities of death buildings,  but nothing really for fantasy.  All we have is the ruined tower from the Bones Dragon's Don't Share and it is still pretty warped so not assembled yet.

What are everyones favorite piece of purchased fantasy terrain?

Age of Sigmar: Missing Rules Already

So I know we are all really happy that GW entered the 21st century with an acceptance of the internet.  Think what you will about the Age of Sigmar rules they have made them available as downloads for the basic rules and the warscrolls for the individual models (the starter set scrolls have not shown up).  Strangely though they are on their second 75 dollar expansion book in 2 months  The first one I do not really know what is in it for rules but I think that missions/scenarios are what is being kept back from the internet to make buying it for more than just fluff/painting guides an idea. 

Now I have noticed that the Bringers of the Rotsmog is a bundle on the GW preorders as a new battalion but there are no downloadable rules instead referencing the new book out next week.  Is this an oversight or what to expect going forward.  Models have their rules which are free so far, but battalions and scenarios will cost you.  Obvious GW wants you to buy these books or they would not bother publishing them so I would not be surprised to see a lot of different variance in exclusive contents as the experiment to find the level which optimizing book and model sales.

The Sinister Secret of Sigmar

So I have been thinking about Age of Sigmar so more.  I have seen some more reviews by people and it seems to me that the people who appear to like it are 40K players looking for a simpler change of pace from that.  It is not that 40K is really overally complex, it is more that they are just piles and piles of special rules on special rules. Sigmar is really just 40K stripped down to the bare basics and pushed onto the existing fantasy range.  Other than measuring to the models which is really makes things way more complicated if actually done, the rules are fine for having something to do with your models.  The core rules certainly do not have much replay value, though.

Favorite Lines from GW Annual Report

So as per what I used to do I skimmed through the report.  GW continues to be pretty flat in performance which is pretty good.  Sales were down and units were down even more but that is par for the course.  If you look close Retail is not profitable but all those limited editions and such have pushed the a lot of sales into the highest margin mail order channel.  Overall much less interesting than last year which read like a big F-Off from the outgoing CEO.  Here are my two favorite lines:

"In July 2015, we relaunched Warhammer Fantasy to broad acclaim ‘Warhammer: Age of Sigmar’. We are so proud of this new range of miniatures that we have commissioned an additional statue at our HQ to complement our Space Marine, which has delighted our customers and staff for the last 17 years. You have to see it to believe it, you will not be disappointed."

I have not seen anyway complaining about the miniatures other than they are just taking Space Marines back to their roots of knights in space to knights in astral realms.

"In my opinion the greatest risk is the same one that we repeat each year, namely, management. So long as we have great people we will be fine. Problems will arise if the board allows egos and private agendas to rule. I will do my utmost to ensure that this does not happen on my watch."

I think this is the truest thing that GW has written in their report in a long time.  This guy might be trying to rock the boat a little.  He is still emphasis cash return over growing the player base but he admits that there have been the problems in the upper levels.  They say they are trying to expand their price point lines but without sacrificing margin and that management is involved in monthly product brainstorm sessions.  All of that is interesting.

The main issue they still have is that they do not really try to understand the customer base.  They are right in saying that the customer base whats great looking models.  They are certainly the largest manufacturer of great looking models.  No one in the fantasy/sci fi ranges do injected plastics are at their level.  I cannot really even debate that but again the production method vs use are still misaligned.  They should not be happy seeing unit volume drops since that uncuts the margins of the whole company worse than anything else.  Each year recently were have seen sales drop while prices rise and the number of models used increases which clearly implies less customer.

They need to really invest some time into understanding their customers and how they are segmented.  Nice models only get you so far especially in a world with so many options.  It probably does not carry the new customer past assembling a few models and learning that it is a ton of work to make the models look like they do in the pictures.  The customer needs to be engrossed in the world by either the fluff or the games.  You can look at the LOTR bubble to understand this.  The models were the models but when the movies were at the top of the wider worlds interest they sold like hot cakes.  Once the movies passed so did sales because those stories are a closed narrative.  You can love LOTR but often do not need to explore the world with your own forces as what they do does not affect the world.  The story is outside your hands.

The games themselves are the way you build the story and feedback on the fluff and involvement that the players invest.  It is like a 3 legged chair of Models, Fluff, and Games that hold the interest of the customers.   The retail stores built the empire by allowing them to build a scale of production to make their beautiful plastic kits and they have been riding that empire down from having to 3 top miniature games in the world to having one of the top miniature games in the world.

GW will to continue to exist for years to come because they are focused on the bottom line which is certainly a success but I think they will to stretched to really grow their revenue significantly without bigger change ups in the future.  Every year more players stop than start and they have to keep increasing the prices to make up the difference.  When I got back into GW products and looked at 40K and WFB for the first time(played BB, Space Marine, and Dark Future in the late 80s early 90s)  in 2005-2006 the starter boxes were 40 and like 48 dollars.  The Black Reach box started at 60.  The Age of Sigmar box is 125.  That seems like a lot for a company who runs their profits off very dedicated (addicted) customer base.  Maybe you only want customers who are willing to drop 125 dollars to try a game since they clearly have more money to buy models later.  The free rules for Age of Sigmar are a good start as you can sell people battalion boxes at like 90 dollars if you add a character and it is a starter army for any faction in the game.  Give that box a special formation and away people could go.

Horus Heresy Oh My Part II

Back in March the rumor going around was that GW was releasing a Horus Heresy box game in the spring.  I talked about it here.  Pretty much all of that discussion remains true but that time has come and gone with no release.  Now we are seeing "Leaks" of a early Marks of Space Marine armor in plastics.  The interwebs is ablaze with discussion.  I looked at the models.  Honestly the are pretty bland, certainly nothing fancy or anything GW could not have done 5 years ago.  I like the classic looks myself since I cut my teeth on Space Marine back in the day (hence the above picture of the side of my Space Marine box) but do I really need more marines in 28 or 6 mm scale.  At last count I have like 10 or unassembled marines of various types in the bit box for like 4 years.  I have passed on the new Vanguard, Sternguard, Tactical, Devastator, and Assault Marine kits for 40K.  Not because the models do not look nice but because other than some minor option differences I have plenty of those models already if I decided to pick up 40K in the future again.  I did not need to spend like 220 dollars for like 30 more marines for a couple off grav weapons and a standard marine portable heavy flamer or really big sword.

Now if GW releases Horus Heresy plastics I sure it will be a huge success for them.  It might reduce pure space marine sales a little but they can just put a premium price on these new kits since all the new kits are more expensive that older kits anyway.  Remember you need a lot of marines in a Heresy Army so you will need at least 6 of these 50 dollar tactical boxes.  Oh and your assault marines and devastators will look funny with these guys so how about another 4 boxes of these new 45 dollar 5 man assault marine and 2 boxes of 55 dollars 5 man devastators and another 50 dollar tactical box to round out those.  Remember the character and command squad for another 80 dollars.  Well now you have modern battle company of Heresy marines and those come with free rhinos now (in points and not dollars).  Now another 9 of the redesigned  Mark I rhinos at 50 dollars each.  Only need like 1170 dollars and you to can have a brand new Heresy Modeled Modern Battle Company ready for the table top.  You will really need more since real Heresy companies where much bigger.  An old company is like a full chapter now.

How is it different from your other one that you already had some one asks?  Can't you see everything is styled differently.

Does it play differently?  Not really.  Actually less options unless I get some 100 dollar forge world stuff but look at those bolters.

So this is pure collector focus which is selling more expensive marines to fewer and fewer players.  More of Games workshop selling models to their target demographic of people who collect games workshop miniatures as opposed to investing time and money into finding new customers or bringing old ones back to their games.

Trust me I know collecting GW stuff.  I have like 90% of the pitch used Blood Bowl Miniatures GW has ever produced. Collecting can also be called Hoarding.  If you have some lovely painted armies on display or used regularly that is great.  If you have bunch of bare metal and plastic in the garage in bins that does not get used less so.

Onward to the 1000 dollar collectors limited edition tactical squad which has this super awesome datasheet.

GW Marketing Strategy

So I want to add a quick discussion of GW Marketing Strategy (or lack there of).  This is a response to a comment on my previous post about Age of Sigmar sales. I agree with the poster that GW is not doing this in the optimal way.  The sort of 2 week release window with the leaks coming about a week before the official preorders is to common to be not an allowed corporate strategy.  This limited time frame certainly does not match marketing seen in many other types of entertainment products.   Movies, videogames, and books are all promoted well before the release date.  Sometimes the marketing is so ahead of the releases that I think they have already been out a while by the time they actually appear.   This sort of surprise release strategy seems very strange but I think it is best explained by looking at a quote from last year's financial report:

Our market is a niche market made up of people who want to collect our miniatures. They tend to be male, middle-class, discerning teenagers and adults. We do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants. These things are otiose in a niche.

Just the first sentence says it all.  Our Market is the people who collect our miniatures. If that is your market who is your competition?  Yourself, obviously.  The structure of the marketing is based on the concept that the customer is going to buy your products but if they know what is coming in the next few months they might not buy something available now so they can get that new stuff later.  One might think that one is the same as the other but people have a tendency to forget the money they already spent so some of those customers who already bought stuff they would not have if they knew X and Y were just around the corner still buy X and Y.  Since you kept those coming products secret longer you know made more money.

If that is really how your market is than it is a perfectly reasonable strategy.  The question is of course whether that is the best or even a good description for your market in the current environment.  I do not think it is.  That characterization is a very narrow range of people and not enough to sustain a company with the sales levels GW needs.  I do not even think that Age of Sigmar is targeted at that market but they marketed it like it was.  Disney just spent like 130,000,000 dollars to make the Ant-Man movie.  Ant-Man.  If that does not tell you that Geek is Sheek right now, nothing will.  Age of Sigmar with some fine tuning could be a great introductory game to the warhammer world.  The set is still to expensive and I hear that they are pretty complicated to get together and on the table to play.  With such simple rules one should have the box open and the models on the table in like 30 minutes, playing while the interest is high.

Since they were essential getting rid of one of their main games, it is probably hard for them to ease people into that as it probably would have tanked WFB sales for months and months once the news was released but I am not sure that is was necessary or even a good idea to discontinue WFB.   If they had not changed the scale of the models it would be pretty easy to have the new models do double duty with just some movement trays with circles inscribed.  Maybe the frontage would be a little wider but certainly not unreasonable.  But the scale change was driven by the competition with themselves issue.  Players already have tons of their minis and the secondary market is also swamped with miniatures so you need a reason for people to buy new ones.  You can honestly only make elves look so many different ways but if you make the new ones 15% bigger than the old ones those old ones will not look so good as you can put more perceived detail and will therefore look better.

Having the AoS and WFB compatiable both ways as opposed to just one way certainly seems like a better choice?  Another End of Times book (Dawn of Sigmar) and some introductory releases of these new model groups into WFB then the new game which acts as both a new basic game and a bridge to and from the existing player base.  Providing people with more ways to use your product would allow for larger pools of players of both games which should lead to more excitement in both games.

Even if they keep on the path of AoS with 32-35 mm miniatures are the future for the fantasy genre they would be better served to show more of their hand.  I know a lot of people who have already looked at the models and rules and decided that this was not for them but GW is supposed to have jaw dropping stuff coming down the pipe which just the sight of or knowledge off might move some people near the fence.  All we have now is some detailed models(with questionable design style) with a game not deep enough to convince me to part with 80 dollars let alone the 500-600 dollars a year GW needs from players to keep up revenue.

Age of Sigmar: Battle Game with Skirmish Movement

So I was thinking more about the Age of Sigmar rules and warscrolls.  It is the big news right now so even though I am not investing money in GW stuff, it is still interesting as an experiment in game design.  The lack of points is certainly jarring but CCG do not use points (but those are also very much pay to increase your chances of winning).  Free digital rules is a great way to try to get people involved.

With both Warhammer and 40K starting at more skirmish level games that built into larger standard forces through the editions they have kept a lot of old skirmish style rules with them.  The core of this is the comparison based testing for hitting, wounding, and initiatives in combat.  GW in their drive to simplify has now stripped a lot of those out.

All the Sections from the Skull Pass Mini Rulebook Longer than Age of Sigmar

So as a quick check I was wondering how the old rulebook from 7th edition compares to the new rules:

Playing the Game (2 Pages)
Characteristics (1 Page)
Units (4 Pages)
The Turn (1 Page)
Movement (14 Pages)
Shooting (7 Pages)
Close Combat (15 Pages)
Psychology (6 Pages)
Weapons (4 Pages)
Monsters (4 Pages)
Chariots (3 Pages)
Skirmishers (3 Pages)
Flyers (2 Pages)
Fast Cavalry (1 Page)
Unit Strength (2 Pages)
Characters (7 Pages)
Command Groups (2 Pages)
Generals&BattleStandards (1 Page)
Warmachines (11 Pages)
Special Rules (4 Pages)
Buildings (4 Pages)
Special Features (2 Pages)
Victory (2 Pages)
The Magic Phase (7 Pages)
Lores of Magic (9 Pages)
Magic Items (3 Pages)

So 7 sections of the book are longer and 4 are the same length.  Nothing wrong with short and concise rules but hard to squeeze a lot of depth into 4 pages.  But this game is all about freedom right.  I think the change from formed units to all essentially skirmishers is the biggest change and takes away a lot of the game play structure.  But the game was not selling well so needed to be 40Kified.  I never played Fantasy but I would guess that is more about limited free time as I got the Skull Pass a few weeks before my first child was born.  I seemed to have less free time after that for some reason.

Age of Sigmar: Yeah Keywords

Went through the rules last night probably when I should have been painting.  They are very bare bones and probably will only work in a very friendly style setting.  All the complexity of the game and details have been pushed into the unit descriptions so your average army list will be longer than the game rules.  I did like the units have keywords listed to help identify them in terms of other models and their abilities.

Age of Sigmar: Serious Trimming 250 to 40

Currently I estimate that their are about 250 general choices for units in Warhammer Fantasy Battles.  This is based on the 582 items in the webstore with about 15% bundles and bits and about half of those Heroes of various types who need some counting but not every single one distinct.  The new Age of Sigmar is supposed to have about 40 warscrolls as part of the free download.  If you divide those up against the 9 groups you get about 5 each which is probably broken down to like combat infantry type, shooting infantry type, cavalry type, warmachine/monster type, and Leader/Hero Type.  Given that their were like 15 factions before the End of Times means that each classic army might only have a unit or two that really represents its nature.  Interesting issue here is all those super expensive End of Times Show Piece models might be pretty hard to get through such a compaction.  Maybe they will return as the "Gods of War"hammer in the future.

While it is hard to complain about free rules, I think existing players with large collections are not going to be very happy with the homogenization of their forces.  Now the question is as GW moves forward and releases new units and books will more of these old models have correspondences or will they intentional design them such that they do not match past models well.

GW does seem to be going in the right direction in some senses with the free rules and making the game playable at lower entry points where something like a battalion box is a playable force as opposed to a joke.  This sort of helps them with a expensiveness of the individual miniatures but does go counter to their injected plastic molding production which is about volume.

Maybe this is inspired genius since if you make the units generic enough and the games smaller, people who did not think they could field a WFB army now can make up a Age of Sigmar force out of what they have to give it a go.  Instant player base maybe larger than just the active WFB players. While I did not think is possible that I could field a force for this game as I have no units just lots of fantasy skirmish, I do have 2 units of elves from Mantics Dwarf Kings Hold Green Menace and more than enough Elven Heros/ Fantasy Monster Types to Fill it out.  Also got 2 units of Undead from the Dungeon Saga Kickstarter (originally for the first Dwarf Kings Hold) inbound for another small force.  Ofcourse those models would look really funny verses the huge new AoS minis since they are all pretty small compared to old GW fantasy scale.

Update:

I am wrong.  All sorts of units for all the old armies.

Age of Sigmar, Now Thats Interesting

So I will start this discussion with a bit of a disclaimer.  First, I am not a WFB player.  I picked up a Skull Pass box like 9 years ago and a few assorted dwarves along the way plus the two associated army books and the full rulebook on sale but have parted ways with most of those models in the last 5 or so years.  So I am not really vested.  I am also on the 6 Month Miniature Mountain Painting and Reduction Challenge so I am not buying any new games until about christmas time.  This could be the best game ever made I would not be buying it right now, but I did want to share my thoughts as a general watcher of GW business trends.

So there are two areas to consider, The New Models/Armies/Fluff and the New Rules coming to the Warhammer World.  I will start with the models and such.

Anyone Want to be GW CEO?

GW has listed their CEO position which is coming open at the end of the year as Kirby steps back to the boardroom after another stint as CEO for the company everyone loves or loves to hate.  They are just asking for a Letter so polish up your typewriter and tell them why you are the best person to save GW from themselves.  Obvious since Kirby is still Chairman of the Board as far as I can see, it seems unlikely that anyone with ideas drastically different (sane) from his is likely to get past whatever the very first screening is.

This is obviously some kind of farce as you are unlikely to hand over the keys to of a 180 Million Pound Company to someone you meet for the first time at the interview this outstanding letter is supposed to get you but this is GW so maybe anything is possible.  My guess is that 99.99% of anything they get here will go in the digital abyss unread to allow them to say they did an extensive search to name X as the next CEO.  If they look internally I would hope they pick whoever runs the Forge World business since it is the side the is really growing and responsible for GW not being much closer to the red.

I personally, while I have a very high level of education, do not have the right continent of residence or applicable experience in finance, sales, law, management, or corporate governance to be a legitimate candidate but might throw off a letter just for fun. Anyone over on the right side of the pound going to throw a letter GW's way.

Space Hulk: GW Adds Insult to Injury

So I made my opinions about the new space hulk release known, and now GW being GW double down for me.  They have annouced iPad only "Expansion" based on other marine chapters which appear to add about 2 new weapons/rules and an unknown number of missions for each plus fluff priced at 16 dollars.   Now this is what I am looking for but they split up what might have been a nice release to include the new tiles and missions from the new version of the game into a single new expansion.  New Tiles and Counters plus rules for like 5 weapons/items/character types plus like 16 mission (4 basic and 4 for each of the three) might have been able to separate me from like 40 dollars (so 50 dollar MSRP).  The price matches up to about the cost of the 3 ipad releases but is a physical product for the large percentage of GW customers who do not have an ipad or istuff.  In their greed to squeeze every last drop out of the die hards they have once again left money on the table from the broader audience.

It also appears that the fluff and missions for these expansion are just taken from old white dwarf issues, White Dwarf 158 (SW), 201 (DA) and 205 (UM)

New Space Hulk: Even When GW Does Things Right They Do It Wrong

The internet is all in a buzz as the rumor mill states that this weekend GW will reveal a Space Hulk release.  From what people are saying is that this is the same set that they released 5 years ago with some new counters and a few new missions.  Price point is supposedly 125 dollars.  Now rereleasing this game is a good move for GW as it is a good classic game with excellently detailed miniatures.  I am sure they will sell through any reasonable level of stock they decide to order.  This is probably a 10's of thousands level.  Ofcourse GW is a big company who had a 16 million dollar drop in sales last year would need like 120K sets sold exclusively through their stores to make up that gap but I guess every little bit helps.