I expected this to be posted already, but since nobody has I'll post them meself. Managed to sneak into the GW retailer only seminar. Not much new info, but a little bit that hasn't made it out there yet. Seminar was given by two people whose names I don't remember, but one was the head of trade sales and the other was the head of the team responsible for the price "adjustment" back in june as well as the new price increases we're seeing with the new marine plastics. I wanted to cause physical bodily harm to him, but I was trying to keep quiet. At least Satan has a face now. Also, since it was a retailer seminar everything was mainly about new releases and schedules, very little rules info. Anyways, onto rumors...
Lord of the Rings: (kinda old, but I'll rehash anyways)
-next september/october will see what he called LotR 1.4, a slight revision of the rules in the same way as two towers revised fellowship and RotK revised two towers. Release will be exact same as 40K with a hardbound, extensive rulebook in september followed by a LotR version of the Battle for Macragge box in october. The new beginner set will be called "Mines of Moria" and will have a mini rulebook for LotR, plastic terrain, plastic fellowship, 24 plastic goblins, and a plastic cave troll all for $45. The rules will be generic skirmishes and such.
-Fellowship, two tower and RotK will become "army books" with special characters and scenarios for that movie only in these books.
-in between each movie "army book" there will be a differant army book for stuff that *gasp* is actually new! First was the Armies of the East book which will see plastic easterlings.
-Next will be something about battling a necromancer, which is an entire army book based off of gandalf's one line about battling Sauron before he became so powerful and defeating him with an alliance of men and elves. Sounded like they were really stretching for new stuff, but it does mean new plastic elves and humans and I believe there were goblins and spiders as their main foes, but don't quote me on the last bit. No pics of any of these.
Warhammer Fantasy:
-There WILL be a new edition of WHFB, set to be released exactly one year after the LotR release, they said they wanted to keep the same 2 month release schedule for all three games with a hardbound book in september and a starter box in october. no other info besides that, not even what was planned to be in the box other than that it would be $45 just like 40K and LotR.
-went over the info about lustria that everyone should have heard by now. Again, they are going away from the "end of the world" campeigns, and the campeign is a "historical" campeign set before the storm of chaos.
-They weren't very clear on how it would be handled, but apparently while you can still report single battles, the focus would be on groups of gamers running their own mini campeigns in Lustria and reporting the outcome of the group. They said that it was a completely unscripted, open ended campeign unlike Storm of chaos and eye of terror. However, I remember hearign the same thing when those campeigns were going on so take that with a grain of salt.
-nothing new for wood elves. Showed official pics of the models in another thread, and a pic of the new waywatchers that was set up as a diorama and was so blurry that I literally didn't even see the waywatchers themselves. He said they were getting away from the tree-hugging hippie style elves and going for a meaner, barbaric, gritty style so that they fit in better in the warhammer world. Apparently, 85% of all high elf players are under the age of 14 becuase they are viewed as a "gay army." Hence, the new feral look. I approve.
Warhammer 40K:
-Yes, the terminators are supposed to be $50 and the new tactical squad is $35, and no they are not lowering the price in a few months. This is straight from the head of trade sales' mouth. More on this further down.
-Showed box art for the tryanids. They're going with the new marine type "art" that is photoshoped versions of the models. All 40K boxes will be getting this type of box art.
-nothing new on tyranids, besides the pics you can see in other threads. Even the retailers saw the carnifex silhoute, the reason they said is they had promised the French Gamesday that they would be the first to show the new carnifex. I was pissed. F&^%ing french! Nothing about the rules except that apparently an all genestealer army is now "a viable force" and the brood champion figure is an HQ genestealer.
-Plans are to concentrate on the "big five" space marine chapters, Ultramarines, Black Templars, Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Blood Angels. Ultramarines are first (obviously) and all their special stuff is in the core boxes, which is why you get UM shoulder pads in the commander box, for instance, as UMs need very little to make them look like UMs.
-black templers are planned for the end of the year. They will be releasing a BT tactical squad and possibly a BT terminator squad. All these will be are the normal boxes but with a new BT sprue just like the space wolf sprue. No info on what will be on the sprue except that it will have bitz for both tactial marines and terminators. After a few months the boxes will be discontinued and the sprue will be put in a box sold seperately. No info on price for either the BT tactical squad or the seperate sprue box
-Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves will be released probably one a year. Any rumors you hear regarding new rules for these armies is completely made up, they haven't even decided which army to work on next, and won't decide until they finish the BT codex. They did say that each army will be getting their own plastic sprue just like the BT sprue (wolves will be getting a new sprue) and they will be released just like the BTs, as tactical boxes first for a few months and then sold seperately in a small box. Yes, the oft rumored "chapter sprues" are finally coming out, although it's a few years off.
-Droppod models are NOT being worked on at the moment. They had included droppods in the rulebook becuase they planned to do a model for it, but things didn't go through as planned. There WILL be a model for it eventually however, just not in the forseeable future. They did promise that it wouldn't turn into another wave serpent fiasco, but that could mean it'll take them 5 years to make one instead of the 6 it took them for the wave serpent. IN the meantime there are templates that the GW stores have been using to make them out of foamcore that apparently look pretty good. One of the guys suggested that they load this onto a retailer only website and they said that was a great idea. Hopefully, they'll put the templates in a black gobbo so the rest of us can get them, but if not then bug your FLGS in a few weeks for the templates.
General GW stuff:
-GW are making new army-transport style cases. They were incredibly vague about what exactly these would be like and gave no timetable for release. They are also planning on doing the normal GW cases in differant colored plastic. The first will be a "military" green color and if it does well they will make them in chapter colors too.
-New mega-paint set is planned and will come in a metal case. I don't know anybody besides new players that actually use GW paints anymore, but for all one or two of you out there, there you go.
-I had to bring up the price increase issue, especially with Satan himself standing in the front giving the presentation. Apparently the last price "adjustment" (he actually corrected me when I said price hike) was becuase when he got hired on there was "no structure to the way boxes and blisters were priced" and, while he didn't say this explicitly he might as well have, it was decided to make everything as expensive as the most expensive thing in that category. For example, you used to have sergeants/squad leader/exarchs etc that were $6~$10 each. So they decided that ALL sergeant type blisters would be $10 each. And I kid you not, he said that this was to make it easier on consumers. He actually said that they increased the price of the armies "becuase if all the armies cost roughly the same then people would decide to play the army they really liked and not the one that was the cheapest." I can't believe it but he said that the price increases are to help the gamers who really care about the hobby. I don't know how he said that with a straight face, but he was serious. [sarcasm] The new terminators and tactical squads' prices are to help the retailers and have nothing to do with gaining GW more profits becuase, you see, as the new boxes are more expensive people who are more frugal will buy the older boxes, while people wanting the better models will buy pay the extra money for better models, all so that the retailers will be able to sell their old stock without putting it on sale. When somebody asked if the prices would go down in a few months when the old stock had been sold Satan gave the guy an odd look and said "of course not" like it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. As a matter of fact, Satan said, the new prices are saving you money since you don't have to buy a $40 terminator squad AND a $10 assault cannon AND a cyclone termiantor AND 2 whole new terminators so you can have 2 chainfists, so you actually save $30 with the new box. And the new tactical squad now comes with all the special weapons so you save $5. See how GW is saving you money by charging you more? [/sarcasm]
I think the scariest part, and the most indicitive of GWs corporate entity, is that Satan admitted the the increase in profits will drive away some customers. As Satan himself put it: "but you have to look at the the profit dividends. With the new pricing structure you may be moving less product, but what you do move will net you higher sales than before." And I think that, more than anything else, truly scares me. It's all about the consumer my ass!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~Kalamadea (aka Ember)
Lord of the Rings: (kinda old, but I'll rehash anyways)
-next september/october will see what he called LotR 1.4, a slight revision of the rules in the same way as two towers revised fellowship and RotK revised two towers. Release will be exact same as 40K with a hardbound, extensive rulebook in september followed by a LotR version of the Battle for Macragge box in october. The new beginner set will be called "Mines of Moria" and will have a mini rulebook for LotR, plastic terrain, plastic fellowship, 24 plastic goblins, and a plastic cave troll all for $45. The rules will be generic skirmishes and such.
-Fellowship, two tower and RotK will become "army books" with special characters and scenarios for that movie only in these books.
-in between each movie "army book" there will be a differant army book for stuff that *gasp* is actually new! First was the Armies of the East book which will see plastic easterlings.
-Next will be something about battling a necromancer, which is an entire army book based off of gandalf's one line about battling Sauron before he became so powerful and defeating him with an alliance of men and elves. Sounded like they were really stretching for new stuff, but it does mean new plastic elves and humans and I believe there were goblins and spiders as their main foes, but don't quote me on the last bit. No pics of any of these.
Warhammer Fantasy:
-There WILL be a new edition of WHFB, set to be released exactly one year after the LotR release, they said they wanted to keep the same 2 month release schedule for all three games with a hardbound book in september and a starter box in october. no other info besides that, not even what was planned to be in the box other than that it would be $45 just like 40K and LotR.
-went over the info about lustria that everyone should have heard by now. Again, they are going away from the "end of the world" campeigns, and the campeign is a "historical" campeign set before the storm of chaos.
-They weren't very clear on how it would be handled, but apparently while you can still report single battles, the focus would be on groups of gamers running their own mini campeigns in Lustria and reporting the outcome of the group. They said that it was a completely unscripted, open ended campeign unlike Storm of chaos and eye of terror. However, I remember hearign the same thing when those campeigns were going on so take that with a grain of salt.
-nothing new for wood elves. Showed official pics of the models in another thread, and a pic of the new waywatchers that was set up as a diorama and was so blurry that I literally didn't even see the waywatchers themselves. He said they were getting away from the tree-hugging hippie style elves and going for a meaner, barbaric, gritty style so that they fit in better in the warhammer world. Apparently, 85% of all high elf players are under the age of 14 becuase they are viewed as a "gay army." Hence, the new feral look. I approve.
Warhammer 40K:
-Yes, the terminators are supposed to be $50 and the new tactical squad is $35, and no they are not lowering the price in a few months. This is straight from the head of trade sales' mouth. More on this further down.
-Showed box art for the tryanids. They're going with the new marine type "art" that is photoshoped versions of the models. All 40K boxes will be getting this type of box art.
-nothing new on tyranids, besides the pics you can see in other threads. Even the retailers saw the carnifex silhoute, the reason they said is they had promised the French Gamesday that they would be the first to show the new carnifex. I was pissed. F&^%ing french! Nothing about the rules except that apparently an all genestealer army is now "a viable force" and the brood champion figure is an HQ genestealer.
-Plans are to concentrate on the "big five" space marine chapters, Ultramarines, Black Templars, Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Blood Angels. Ultramarines are first (obviously) and all their special stuff is in the core boxes, which is why you get UM shoulder pads in the commander box, for instance, as UMs need very little to make them look like UMs.
-black templers are planned for the end of the year. They will be releasing a BT tactical squad and possibly a BT terminator squad. All these will be are the normal boxes but with a new BT sprue just like the space wolf sprue. No info on what will be on the sprue except that it will have bitz for both tactial marines and terminators. After a few months the boxes will be discontinued and the sprue will be put in a box sold seperately. No info on price for either the BT tactical squad or the seperate sprue box
-Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves will be released probably one a year. Any rumors you hear regarding new rules for these armies is completely made up, they haven't even decided which army to work on next, and won't decide until they finish the BT codex. They did say that each army will be getting their own plastic sprue just like the BT sprue (wolves will be getting a new sprue) and they will be released just like the BTs, as tactical boxes first for a few months and then sold seperately in a small box. Yes, the oft rumored "chapter sprues" are finally coming out, although it's a few years off.
-Droppod models are NOT being worked on at the moment. They had included droppods in the rulebook becuase they planned to do a model for it, but things didn't go through as planned. There WILL be a model for it eventually however, just not in the forseeable future. They did promise that it wouldn't turn into another wave serpent fiasco, but that could mean it'll take them 5 years to make one instead of the 6 it took them for the wave serpent. IN the meantime there are templates that the GW stores have been using to make them out of foamcore that apparently look pretty good. One of the guys suggested that they load this onto a retailer only website and they said that was a great idea. Hopefully, they'll put the templates in a black gobbo so the rest of us can get them, but if not then bug your FLGS in a few weeks for the templates.
General GW stuff:
-GW are making new army-transport style cases. They were incredibly vague about what exactly these would be like and gave no timetable for release. They are also planning on doing the normal GW cases in differant colored plastic. The first will be a "military" green color and if it does well they will make them in chapter colors too.
-New mega-paint set is planned and will come in a metal case. I don't know anybody besides new players that actually use GW paints anymore, but for all one or two of you out there, there you go.
-I had to bring up the price increase issue, especially with Satan himself standing in the front giving the presentation. Apparently the last price "adjustment" (he actually corrected me when I said price hike) was becuase when he got hired on there was "no structure to the way boxes and blisters were priced" and, while he didn't say this explicitly he might as well have, it was decided to make everything as expensive as the most expensive thing in that category. For example, you used to have sergeants/squad leader/exarchs etc that were $6~$10 each. So they decided that ALL sergeant type blisters would be $10 each. And I kid you not, he said that this was to make it easier on consumers. He actually said that they increased the price of the armies "becuase if all the armies cost roughly the same then people would decide to play the army they really liked and not the one that was the cheapest." I can't believe it but he said that the price increases are to help the gamers who really care about the hobby. I don't know how he said that with a straight face, but he was serious. [sarcasm] The new terminators and tactical squads' prices are to help the retailers and have nothing to do with gaining GW more profits becuase, you see, as the new boxes are more expensive people who are more frugal will buy the older boxes, while people wanting the better models will buy pay the extra money for better models, all so that the retailers will be able to sell their old stock without putting it on sale. When somebody asked if the prices would go down in a few months when the old stock had been sold Satan gave the guy an odd look and said "of course not" like it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. As a matter of fact, Satan said, the new prices are saving you money since you don't have to buy a $40 terminator squad AND a $10 assault cannon AND a cyclone termiantor AND 2 whole new terminators so you can have 2 chainfists, so you actually save $30 with the new box. And the new tactical squad now comes with all the special weapons so you save $5. See how GW is saving you money by charging you more? [/sarcasm]
I think the scariest part, and the most indicitive of GWs corporate entity, is that Satan admitted the the increase in profits will drive away some customers. As Satan himself put it: "but you have to look at the the profit dividends. With the new pricing structure you may be moving less product, but what you do move will net you higher sales than before." And I think that, more than anything else, truly scares me. It's all about the consumer my ass!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~Kalamadea (aka Ember)
