# Mail Order.



## MarzM (Jan 26, 2007)

I just want to know what the guy's think about mail order from the end of the month stopping selling of individual bitz?


Instead they will be selling bitz bags!? So if i want an ork jump pack for example as of Feb, instead of buying however many jump packs i need, i'll be forced to buy bitz bags that will contain a couple of rokkits and a whole pile of junk i dont want! Check out the back of this months white dwarf to see more!!


MarzM


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## The Wraithlord (Jan 1, 2007)

Think it is a pile of crap myself. I don't need the bitz that I am not asking for, why should I pay for them as well.


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## morfangdakka (Dec 31, 2006)

Yeah it sucks big time that you have to buy a bunch of other junk just to get the part you want. It is going to be harder to do conversions either that or people are going to start using bits places like battlewagon bits.


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

i jsut dont think its economically viable anymore, its part of the cost cutting exercise GW are on at the moment, so i support it, if it keeps the hobby going.


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## cccp (Dec 15, 2006)

imo its just another way to lose business. how is it not cost effective to sell individual bits when theyre selling them in bags with _more_bitz anyway? surely that is not cot effective either.


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

because of the way theyre packaged. they have to employ people to go through the racks (which are ENORMOUS) to find things bit by bit. making bitz packs will cut this down, and save time and money. and also space.


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## cccp (Dec 15, 2006)

but wont people just buy them from say...battlewagon bitz instead..so they can get the bitz they want?


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## Firewolf (Jan 22, 2007)

>>Its a fuckin joke, to put it politely. As has been said, why would people want to buy shite they dont need. Utter fuckin disgrace. And I dont fall for this better for the company shite either. Schemin bastards, no more, no less.:angry:


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

perhaps, but i imagine GW has computed this. i imagine bitz orders make up an insignificant amount of business, and that theyve gathered the most popular combos into packs.

im just speculating, but im sure GW have thought this through.


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## Firewolf (Jan 22, 2007)

MarzM said:


> So if i want an ork jump pack for example as of Feb, instead of buying however many jump packs i need, i'll be forced to buy bitz bags that will contain a couple of rokkits and a whole pile of junk i dont want!
> 
> 
> MarzM


>> So you will need to buy even more bitz bags, therefor getting more un-needed shit, and making GW more cash in to the bargain. They must think people are fuckin stupid.


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

firewolf said:


> >>Its a fuckin joke, to put it politely. As has been said, why would people want to buy shite they dont need. Utter fuckin disgrace. And I dont fall for this better for the company shite either. Schemin bastards, no more, no less.:angry:



i really dont see how you reach this conclusion. i mean yes, i can see how you might be upset, its annoying to me as well, but as for your closing statement, it makes no sense.

you hypothesise that this will lose them money, but you call them scheming like they want more of your money.

They know about BWB and stuff like that, so they've taken it into account. use them in future. GW obviously decided it was no longer cost-effective to support the service, so have removed it. If it means you spending less, then so be it. itll save GW more i suppose in the long run...



> So you will need to buy even more bitz bags, therefor getting more un-needed shit, and making GW more cash in to the bargain. They must think people are fuckin stupid.


then dont buy them if you dont want them. decide if its worth it. they dont think youre stupid. chill.


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## angels of fire (Dec 4, 2007)

chill people any way you could use the other crap to base your models... i can a imagine a warboss shouting an angry waaaaaagh on top of a pile of rokkits :biggrin:


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## Asmodai (Dec 30, 2006)

cccp said:


> but wont people just buy them from say...battlewagon bitz instead..so they can get the bitz they want?


Yes, and BWB also has plastic bitz where GW only sells sprue.

BWB prices according to supply and demand - hence why a Baneblade sponson is $50 and a Terminator Assault Cannon $10 by itself.

GW would be accused of structuring the rules to gouge customers if they did that themselves. If they didn't, they'd have warehouses full of nothing by unpopular bitz, or they'd need to pay to dispose of them.

It really makes a lot of sense for GW pass the individual bitz role onto a 3rd party.


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## cccp (Dec 15, 2006)

well, in all honesty, i just dont see the point. i dont buy the excuses either. 

and im sure, not many other people do. a 'cost cutting' exercise which will most probably lose them business....


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## Engelus (Jul 26, 2007)

I agree with the asmodai's statements.

I find battle wagon bitz to be a great resource. 

I don't know what will be going into these packs, but it could end up being a positive thing.

who knows, "extra baneblade sponsons" might be an available bitz pack same with "plastic hurricane bolter sponsons" or "extra armor"


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## MarzM (Jan 26, 2007)

Yes, donig bitz bags for things like battlewagons is a great idea. Infact it's the old gubbibgs bags from a wgile back. But to stop doing individual bitz is stupid!. To created my stormtroopers i need the torso of the chao's dev sergent. Now that £2 a go just to cut his head off. But i'll be damned if im going to spend £6 to buy the whole model just so i can cut his bloody head off!!

I also need the sniper rifle from the Vostroyan snipers. £1.50 each is ok, bollocks to another £6 etc. I need the old chaos termi heads for my chaos guard (mask ones) these will probably be discontinued! Good bye to the old sentiment of, " if you have the code, we can get you the part. 

Converting is one of the parts of the hobby i love the most, and i don't mind too much spending £20-£30 on my character models, i refuse to spend that on the grunds. If this is the case i might as well buy an army from Forge World!

MarzM


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

To me, while it may be a cost cutting exercise, its costing GW big in another way. PR. As you can see, some of our most talent and experianced members are gettting annoyed about this (quite rightly in my eyes). And Heresy won't be alone in this. The problem is is that moves like this reduces choice from the gamer as they are forced to buy bits they don't want. This obvisouly annoys people as they are having to pay money for stuff which they are just going to have lying around or waste. Yes their may be some bags that are full of good parts but there will also be bags with stuff that is mixed and some with only one good thing. Also there are going to be parts that people may want that arn't going to be in the bags. And what about older parts from the archive range? BWB doesn't sell them as far as I know. They arn't going to be in the bags so where do you get them from now?

Now yes parts you buy but don't want can be traded for bits you do but I can tell you now that even with this there are going to be bits that nobody wants which they ahve payed money for which before they wouldn't have had and wouldn't have payed for.

It also could create a monopoly for BWB, as soon as you start removing consumer choice of where to go to get their products the places that are still in business can do what they like with the prices.

Now considering the amount of GW Bashing that goes on (Rightly or wrongly, im not taking sides) PR is something that GW desperatly needs - especially from gamers in the older age bracket. These older gamers generally arn't happy with the way that WD has changed and the jury is still out on whether the rules streamlining is a good thing. Combine this with the price hikes (again not taking sides - but you can't deny that the price of the hobby has risen a fair bit in the past 5 years) and the atmosphere isn't all rosey for GW.


As for the idea that this is a cost saving exercise. I don't beleive that is true, I think that the way they operated the bits service before would have been working fine however they have come up with a way to make more of a profit. The idea that the cost of employing warhouse staff and packaging is too much is laughable. The chances are these workers arn't employed soley for individual parts orders, they will be packaging together normal kits as well. 

My take on it is that this is designed to move more stock. GW is a business and its aim is to make money. Now unfortuntly this sometimes comes at the cost of annoying certain demographics. It may do make more money for them, it may not but the chances are the one thing we can count on is that PR will take another hit. It all depends on how many more hits PR can take before a policy reversal.


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## Archangel (Dec 30, 2007)

I say it's a bunch of crap. It'll force hobbyist to buy off ebay and sites like that that still sell individual bits.


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## Engelus (Jul 26, 2007)

if I am ever on trial, I don't want you people on my jury, you will have judged me before you ever saw any evidence. 

does anyone know what will be in these bags?
does anyone know what the price point will be?


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## Bishop120 (Nov 7, 2007)

Engelus said:


> if I am ever on trial, I don't want you people on my jury, you will have judged me before you ever saw any evidence.
> 
> does anyone know what will be in these bags?
> does anyone know what the price point will be?


It doesnt matter. They are still FORCING us to buy whole packages of things which we might only want 1-2 pieces. Its like the special weapons and heavy weapons. Box sets only come with certain weapons. Want something outside the normal and you have to buy special packages. Now if you want to build a special army your going to have to buy whole bags to get the individual pieces you need. Might be great for the conversion boys, the terrain builders, the hundred army people but bad for the people who dont have the room for all this. 

Having the bags available = good
Getting rid of individual parts order = horribly bad


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

its a financial move, theyre not doing it because they hate you. leave them alone, you can still use BWB, so dont complain.

They dont really have a choice whether they do it or not.


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## Bishop120 (Nov 7, 2007)

As long as they continue to screw me over I will continue to gripe about them. Now this makes it more difficult to make my 39 Melta Chaos army.


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## cccp (Dec 15, 2006)

torealis said:


> its a financial move, theyre not doing it because they hate you. leave them alone, you can still use BWB, so dont complain.
> 
> They dont really have a choice whether they do it or not.


there is always a choice, company man!


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

what? lose money or not lose money?


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## cccp (Dec 15, 2006)

well, would they really be losing that much money if they stayed as they are? the answer is no i think.


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

then why the change? its obviously more cost effective to do it the way they are planning, otherwise why would they do it? once again, games workshop are not doing this just to piss you off.


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## cccp (Dec 15, 2006)

but surely theyll be losing money selling bitz bags too? lots of people wont buy them because they dont want to waste their money, and as each bit costs a minimum of say, 50p, theyll want to make it worthwhile to buy, and id assume, put a lil more then say, £6 worth of bitz in a bag. 

they could rise the prices of each bit by say, 10 or 15 or even 20 pence, but still undercutting BWB, and it would have the same effect right?


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

basically the packs will be easier to store and find, so fewer staff and less time is used by people selecting mail orders.


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## Engelus (Jul 26, 2007)

in some ways this might regulate the cost at BWbits.

at bw bits they couldn't justify selling the bits for even close to what the bag was, if you want one assault cannon (which is now 8.99) and GW sells a bag that includes a few other things (like meltaguns and plasmas and the ammoboxes associated and covers for the guns) 
and they sell it for 2 dollars more, you are probably going to buy the bag with the extra stuff in it because for 2 more dollars you can get a bunch of stuff that could atleast make it into conversions or onto bases. 

this goes both ways however, BWbits may no longer have to buy entire sprues to sell just one popular bit, instead of having to buy a box of termies, for one assault cannon, they could then buy the cheaper bag of bits and make thier prices lower.


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

bitz packs are all metal, so no bits of sprue in packs.


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

torealis said:


> basically the packs will be easier to store and find, so fewer staff and less time is used by people selecting mail orders.


Tor the idea that GW has staff empolyed soley for individual orders is laughable. I highely doubt that there is so much demand for inidividual bits that they employ staff soley for that. They will still be doing other things. There arn't going to be staff cuts in this "cost-cutting excerise", if anything the chnaces are they might have to employ more people to do the packaging. The mail order people are doing this sorta work anyway so saying that its cheaper doing it this way makes no sense. Whats the differance between picking a tactical squad of a shelf and picking up Abbadon's sword? - not very much. You take a list of the items that you require to be sent out to the consumer either way.

While GW may not delerably be out to annoy the gamer the fact is: they are. Sooner or later this is going to stop. Either through gamers getting feed up and leaving or GW realising that there is mounting annoyance towards them. People can say "get over it" all they want but in the end they are going to have to be willing to admit that over the last couple of years GW has become less gamer freindly than it was in the way that it conducts business. There is no way to deny this. I'm not trying to create ill feeling or anything its simply the facts. One of the tenants of business is: The Customer is always right. These days people are beinging to think that GW has forgotten that. You know this, hell every time the subject is brought up you do your best to dispell the allegations of unfairness and the big bad GW. But the annoyed gamers still remain. 

I'm not saying that GW is some uber nasty coperation that is the root of all evil, what I'm saying is that while at the storefront the front line service people like yourself are very good at dealing with the customer, up higher its not very customer oriantentated. Its money focussed. Normally in a business thats a good thing but when you are selling the product that GW is, a product that requires ongoing consumer support, making decisions that annnoy the consumer (rightly or wrongly) isn't a good idea and the more that the consumer isn't listened too, the more angry they get. There has to be a balance. Thats what the inidivual parts ordering was, a balance that while may not have made GW a heap of money (I don't think it lost money either) certainly made them good PR.


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## Engelus (Jul 26, 2007)

I wonder if this could lead to bits backs being available in stores. that would be convenient.


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

> Tor the idea that GW has staff empolyed soley for individual orders is laughable.


Someone has to do it. If they aren't doing it, or spending less time doing it, it means their time can be spent more productively elsewhere.



> Whats the differance between picking a tactical squad of a shelf and picking up Abbadon's sword? - not very much. You take a list of the items that you require to be sent out to the consumer either way.


This is, unfortunately, untrue. I'm lucky enough to have been in the warehouse. The stock boxes are all in massive sections, very easy to find and get to. All individual bitz items are stored in small boxes in massive racks of shelves in some kind of system similar to a library and the dewey-decimal system. It is time consuming to find individual bitz. This is at least part of the reason they are cutting it out.

And unfortunately for you, and us, GW can afford to annoy. In fact it cant afford not to annoy. We, as bitz enthusiasts and forum whingers, are a tiny minority of the GW community and bitz orders make up a minority of Direct Sales, so it makes sense for GW to rid themselves of it.

Like I've said, they've thought this through. You can fuss and complain all you like, but this is good for GW. It might not be good for YOU, and you can think its going to harm them all you want, but, well, youre wrong.


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## Jezlad (Oct 14, 2006)

Interesting discussion. 

As an ex warehouse manager I can pretty much guarantee picking a few metal pieces isn't that difficult. The simple fact is GW have weighed up the financial benefit of selling individual bits and "bits packs" and decided to roll with the profit margin. 

Blaming them for this though is pointless, its a business. GW are in a position to do what they want, they dominate the market. We'll put up and continue to buy. 

They know people arent going to switch over to other game systems. They're all shit.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

Either it's a lot of people ordering bitz or a few. In either case, It's bad to get rid of it.

If it's not happening a lot then it can't be costing GW a lot. If all it means is that they need a couple of people fetching bitz, or for packers to go and get bitz from time to time, then it isn't a big deal for the company. Removing it annoys a small but vocal and active group a great deal, which is terrible PR for little financial gain.

On the other hand, if there are lots of people ordering bitz then there is quite obviously a lot of demand for them. By removing the service, GW are irritating a large group of people. That is also bad PR.

The bitz service is one of the things that sets GW apart from other games producers. They have always promoted the modelling side as well as the gaming side of the hobby, and this very obviously makes it harder to get the bitz you want.

I'm constantly amazed by GW doing things that annoy their old time customers. Many have been driven away over the years as they aim towards recruiting more kids.


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## humakt (Jan 2, 2008)

I've just thought of another good reason for them stopping it (good from GW's point of view).

Im assuming that 'bitz' have to be placed in storage bins by hand, and this in itself would mean making extra runs of figures during prodction and then sorting them into the various bins. If they just used bits from miscats (I mean partial miscasts from a mould), the operator can place the miscasts into his hopper to be reused, the usable parts can be packaged straight away just like normal figure. Obviously this only works for metal's.

This would save time, and time is money. And as for saying GW would not 'sack' people, they probably would not need too. Natural wastage is a good way of slimming down the workforce when the workload is streamlined.

I've very rarly ordered bits, but I the fact I now cant will mean I'll have to plan conversions a little more carefully to get the most for my money.


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## Bishop120 (Nov 7, 2007)

They also come from where the developers take parts to make their own "demo" armies and tables and have left over pieces. You dont actually think the developers pay for all those armies they show you in codexes/WD do you??


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## casanova (Nov 1, 2007)

i agree ive done it before total waste of money


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

torealis said:


> Like I've said, they've thought this through. You can fuss and complain all you like, but this is good for GW. It might not be good for YOU, and you can think its going to harm them all you want, but, well, youre wrong.


Famous last words tor lol. 

And isn't whats good for the consumer also good for GW?, I just generally thought that when you are selling something its important to keep costumers happy?


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## cccp (Dec 15, 2006)

well, i guess if you buy to convert in bulk, these bags are better. however, most people dont buy bitz to bulk convert, and the reasons given for the change as always are well, as watertight as a sieve.


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## Pandawithissues... (Dec 2, 2007)

People are still going to have to sort all the bits into the bags. I'm fairly sure the savings on manpower will be minimalistic at best.


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## Lord Sinkoran (Dec 23, 2006)

wtf bits bags theats just stupid


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

while i dislike many of games workshops policies and prices and as a person who rarely leaves a model unchanged i cant see that not being able to get overpriced individual metal bits a problem any plastic unit you buy these days has nearly enough wasted bits that you dont actually need to make plenty of conversion ( ive just made a 2000 point chaos ogre army from the leftovers of a spawn box and other random chaos plastics and a bit of imagination, and some green stuff) and id much rather use random plastics than shell out even more for a metal model,


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## kharnthebetrayer (Nov 26, 2007)

I'm cautiously optimistic about the bits bags. I have never ordered individual bits from GW since I am one of those gamers who builds an army for the least possible amount of money. (That's why I use Marine Armies, its going to be interesting how bad my $135 Tyranids are going to bek So what, I'm not a huge market for GW, but I have spent over 400 dollars on GW stuff, which isn't bad. Anyway, I might actually prefer the bits bag because I love giving my troops cool looking stuff like trophy racks and spikes. I will give cool guns and ornaments to my troops no matter what the points cost, and stuff that I don't use will make awesome basing material.

Although I just started gaming in September, I am really happy with everything about GW except for prices. However, like I said earlier, I make really cheap armies, and I play for the fun of playing, rather than beating another player into the dirt. (I am the player that gets beat into the dirt:wink Also, I love GW's codexs. I can spend hours just reading through fluff that I have read 6 or 7 times already. So I'm pretty optimistic about GW and the future of 40k.


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## Steel Rain (Jan 14, 2008)

GW is taking examples from WotC. Let's not sell things people want! Let's make them buy 35 ridiculously over-priced blisters to get what they want!


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## roricon (Jan 11, 2008)

It's not even the bits bags that I mind.

It's the parts that WON'T be going in them.

Things like the Exorcist armour plates which I wanted to use as extra armour for my Immolator.


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## MarzM (Jan 26, 2007)

Well Gents and Ladies. On Tuesday i saw the new mailorder catalogue! Well its a fcuking abomination!

Things you can buy things you can't, it's all there. Simple things like if you want 2 plasma gunners in your Kasikin squad you must buy the blister with the melta gunner too. Thats the good news! Coz if you want to buy a flamer or grenade launcher then you have to buy the WHOLE box set, twice!!!

Or how about you want Marinus Calgars honour guard? Well according to the new bible of all thing GW, you have to buy the box! Now in every box there is 1 calgon chappy, 1 standard bearer and a company champion with 2 random guy's. So by this, to buy the unit of 10 guys i need to buy 5 box's at £25 each to get the unit, with 4 Marinus,4 standard bearers and 4 champions left over!!

This was just from about 10 minutes of skimming the book! Im sure there are more hidden delights! Good luck finding them!


MarzM


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

Nasty, really bloody nasty. Dam I'm glad I managed to find my GK Terminator with Psycannnon that has a pole arm rather than that stupid sword now rather than waiting to do a big order because now I can't do it.

The conversion I had for my radical =I= just went out the window as I was going to be using Cotez's body and Archeon's sword for it but fuck paying for the Cotez box and Archeon to make it. Thats well over $120 to make one mini when the parts themselves would probably have cost me about $15 under the old system. I've already got the henchmen sorted out so its not like I save any money from the guys I get with Cotez. Thats a bloody disgrace. I'm serverally pissed off.


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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

Well fuck me running, I was gonig to start ordering the shoulder pad bits with the infanty etc cast into them. This is one of the most retarded things I have heard of so far. Well anyone want to go into business selling bits now? They just opened up the market.

GW may have done this in mind of saving money or even making money but they fucked up royally by pissing off the hardcore players who do invest 50+ dollars on a single model to get the results that they want. They need to expand their blister line to solve some of the problems pointed out above.


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## MarzM (Jan 26, 2007)

Well i got moaned at by a "trainee" manager today! You know the one's. The big fat one's that smell a bit whiffy and nobody really likes and that only got a trainee managers post because they have been with the company so long that to fire them (which is what they really want to do) would seem like cock slapping your favourite gommy paw'd kitten in the face! So instead they promote them so that they will fail of their own stupidity and have to leave! 

Well anyway, he sez that im a doom sayer! Apparently you can buy things like the flamer/grenade kasikin and the honour guard separatly! Too which my response was " Well you guy's said if it wasn't in the book it's not avalabile"!

Nuf said coz he had no f*cking answer and just went back to shuffling in the corner!


MarzM

P.S. He also said he didn't like forum's coz they talk nothing but shit! Then started moaning about *Warseer* and *Bolter and chainsword* You guy's will be happy to know that he had never heard of HO and that he was gracious enough to dismiss it out of hand!

Scottish word of the day - * Bawbag * 
English translation - A person who is a testical/scrotum ( see above trainee manager)


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## cccp (Dec 15, 2006)

stupid trainee manager!

and to he honest, the whole thing is silly. even the GW staff dont seem to know whats going on with it. its just gonna make it a lot harder (and expensive) to have a cool, unique army.

to make matters worse, all the reasons given for the change so far are bullshit imo.....



MarzM said:


> Nuf said coz he had no f*cking answer and just went back to shuffling in the corner!


well, i wouldnt argue with marzm either.... :biggrin:


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## Steel Rain (Jan 14, 2008)

Why don't they just sell the entire bits division to another company like BWB or disperse them to shops for auctioning? If they have that big of a stock, why not sent the extra bits out once a year for an annual auction. Seems to make more sense than selling them in bags and pissing off consumers. Wouldn't you rather have those bits available in stores?


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## Pandawithissues... (Dec 2, 2007)

Weeeey!
Ordered all the bits i needed for my eldar exodite army and more before the weekend avoiding the closure date!

@$%! you games workshop!

PS, i do realise they got 30 quid of me, but its less than if i'd waited.

£$%& you again for good measure.:ireful2:


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## O'sharan (Nov 3, 2007)

does anyone know if WHW is still selling bits?


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

Why would warhammer world still sell bitz? they are linked to Direct. They get you stuff from direct, ie what direct sells. ie. whats in the new catalogue.


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## cccp (Dec 15, 2006)

try BWB for bitz now.


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## Pandawithissues... (Dec 2, 2007)

> try BWB for bitz now


They only sell plastic bits though don't they?


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## Andrew Luke (Jan 28, 2008)

Guys this makes perfect sense. GW has stockholders. They want money. Their core competencies are writing good fluff to sell nice big armies of plastic minis. Pick+Pack might be done well by amazon.com, but not GW. Maybe if they implemented an SAP system (for $2-5 million) they could make their warehouse profitable, but right now all it is is a big road block between them and their cash cow. This is actually BETTER for us more avid hobbyists and gamers from an economics perspective, because it removes any monopolistic profit motive from this part of the hobby. Instead of buying a $8 assault cannon, I can buy a dozen guns for $12. This is because GW sees these bitz as garbage; worthless leftovers to dump on the market and stop getting in the way of selling Tac squads to 12 year olds. I can take my assault cannon and sell the rest to someone who needs it for $8 (A $4 consumer surplus for me, assuming I was gonna buy the assault cannon anyway), or even better, just keep all the bitz in a giant box that my inner dork can drool over whenever ideas start spawning after a bit too much cognac. Best part yet as I can now cover my ass with regards to my girl, "Sorry honey, I only needed this one little bit, but the big evil corporation made me buy the whole bag!" as my hobby slowly takes over the tea room... >)


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

cccp said:


> well, i wouldnt argue with marzm either.... :biggrin:


Neither would I, although now that I have moved cities I could probably get away with it. 

Hey MarzM :fuck:

_(Runs away and hides from Marz's wrath)_


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

stop moaning. stuff like this:

http://uk.games-workshop.com/shopping/assets/2008-Bitz-Catalogue.pdf

will be coming out monthly.


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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

Cool catalog but it seems some of the shoulder pads are missing. Plus alot of options are also mising like buying honor guard models. I know its the first month but some work could be done to make this better.


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

One or two good deals in there like the Psycannon and Grey Knight arms and the hounds at the start but I still refer to my previous example of my Radical =I=. I doubt there is going to be a bag that allows me to do that.


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## forgotten hero (Nov 23, 2007)

TBH, GW has been suffering since the end of the LOTR trilogy ended. 

So they put up prices to increase profit margins on products, along with some small cost cuttings to help boost profits or shorten the losses, this has obviously not worked, they are now having major surgery done to combat the downfall in the net profit, with vast cost cuttings internally and increased costs. 

This is a purely business decision and obviously one they needed to make, so possibly expect more, they will but cost cutting all over the place to save money, and make the company more leaner, this area is obviously one they looked at and thought its easily enough to cut costs here and it will be, they must'nt of been making any money on some products, and possibly even a loss on tiny orders, like I spent was 50p on a Servo skull (picked it up at WHW) now, the cost of the lead wont be alot, but its the man/women running around the stock room on £7 an hour or so collecting it, then the cashiers time electricity, rent on said stock room etc etc, these all costs, not I think my 50p (no idea on the actual price, but it wasn't much more, maybe £1.50)Servo skull would of cost them money with all those factors included. Not very successful business practice... 

So this is the solution they came up with, its not terrible really is it, its not like they stopped it all together... if it makes them money, then thats a good thing, in the long run, it may lead to the price of all our miniatures going down... 

So, expect more changes, be it slight, or major, but GW must be looking at how to make them selfs a more lean company and this in the long is a great thing, shows the care a little and are not willing to drift until they are small enough to be taken over by another company.... even if it may inconvenience us atm. 

-Rob

I for one support this move in a purely business sense, but as a gamer, its quite hard to take, meaning I cannot spend a couple of quid on a few things that I've lost or something thats broken and needs replacing *looks at snapped and bent swooping hawks wing*, so what if I have to spend a little more to get the bits I want, cos I will be getting lots of cool bits with it, Or I hope so anyways.


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## maxtangent (Jan 31, 2008)

As to making money, the whole point of the Bitz system should have been to help sell models. Being able to customize an army appeals to a lot of hobbyists, especially as their time in the hobby increases.

How many of you started another army mainly for conversions with tactics a secondary issue? Are you as likely to do so now? Is your passion for the hobby going to be blunted?

When a company gets stuck on making the highest possible profit on each sale, they start shooting themselves in the foot. All veteran players have helped sell the hobby just by playing and sharing their knowledge. If you aggravate those players enough so that they stop buying, you lose your recruiters. How does that save/make the company money? I made over $4000 selling my MtG cards when they started making them obsolete. I don't collect them anymore and don't play at all. I liked the game and the customization, but when they tried to make me continually spend money I didn't want to, I quit.

I was planning on buying Lictor arms to use as Rending Claws for my Raveners since GW didn't bother including them with the models, yet gave the option for them in the rules. The same problem exists with wings for Hive Tyrants, RCs for Warriors and enough Devourers for MCs in general. Luckily I have a TON of 'Fex heads I don't need though :crazy:. I wonder which suit made that decision? I only have so much disposable income to spend on GW products. It seems they want me to spend it on bits I don't want/need rather than models that will encourage newcomers to the hobby. How does that strategy make them money?

A time may come when vets stop buying models, pick a rules set they like (with house rules thrown in) and just play with what they have. Irk them enough and they stop buying those pricey codices and new rulebooks. They stop trying to get 5000 points of one army and they don't bother starting another. To get their modeling fix, they can always buy from another company like Reaper or Ral Partha. They can even make rules for those models.

A lot of good gaming companies died when businessmen took over operations and the next quarter's bottom line took precedence over ensuring long-term appeal to gamers.


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