Ghast and Avast

Wading through the rumours concerning the Vampire Counts has given me both optimism and dread.

The optimism stems from my appraisal that the new book, in common with recent books, will force Vampire players to make some hard choices in the Special and Rare sections. Something that will hopefully be compounded by the reappearance of the bloodline rules.

The dread comes from the potentially large number of units that will have the Ethereal rule (and not because of the number of American podcasts that will mangle the word). My Ogres have limited options for dealing with Ethereal units.....

Still, all will be revealed in January. And hoepfully the release wil be accompanied by declarations of rage quitting... and it would also be nice if GW winged Mantic's fox (obviously the model range procludes an outright killing but it would be nice if the tweeks wounded it a bit)

I realise that this blog often rails against the sewers of human filfth... aka internet forums... but I find the developing meme relating to when and how GW announce releases rather baffling.

What confuses me is this.

If you can only buy something when it is realeased - by which I include the advanced orders - then what does it matter if GW tell you of the release date one day or one year in advance?

Perhaps a legitimate complaint is that the new arrangements work against those who have to save up, or set money aside, for whatever it is. But this is fairly weak. For if you have internut access which allows you to propogate the meme, then you also have internut access that allows you to go to sewers and search the rumour threads, and make the necessary financial arrangements based on the information contained therein.

Now it is true that much of what is contained in these threads is false, certainly if the release is some months away. But it is equally clear that some of the stuff is leaked by GW - oh! they may deny it but let's be honest, it is in their interest to do so, and they would be mad not to. How else do you explain the sudden re-appearance of rumur threads (closed down to waffle and wishlisting) about armies that are known to be imminent which contain accurate information? It is surely not coincidence that one day threads will be a 'I spoke to a red shirt and they said...' followed by a scrawl of internut cynicism, and the next there are the *touch nose* 'I met a bloke in the pub and he told me...' followed by a pretty accurate break down of what the new army book/codex contains.

My point being that if you are particularly interested in an army, and you do need to save up for the shiney new toys, you don't need GW telling you to do so.... oh wait.... I see the error in my logic....

Another element of the meme that amuses me, is the notion that this change somehow breaks the rules of marketing.

It is not hard to find sewer dwellers who are experts on marketing - just as it is equally not hard to find sewer dwellers who claim to know more about GW's business model, accounts, design process, costs, etc than the people running the company. According to the marketing experts 'geeks' require advance notice in order to build their excitement for new products. Which I am guessing comes from GCSE business studies, or some equally low level certificated eductional ego massaging procedure. Homer Simpson's Nuts and Jello is another example that springs to mind.

The fact is, I don't want my email box filling up with emails form GW advising me that I can in six months time buy a product that I don't want because I have no interest in the army or the particular game system.

I'm perfectly happy that they send me three or four emails a week informing me that in a week, or so, I can buy a product that I don't want because I have no interest in the army or the particular game system.

I would not be happy if those emails increased exponentially to fill out the (supposedly required) ad campaign - say three months, one month, two weeks, one week, release date (I already have a number of companies that think this is a good idea, I see their emails whenever I am cleaning out the spam). And frankly by the time it arrived that I could buy, far from being mildly interested in a product (that I have no intention of buying for the reasons previously mentioned) - which is the case now (I might go and look at it on the website, I may even daydream about buying and using it as the basis of an army before I remember that is an army I am not interested in or a game system I don't play (which is perhaps a sign that the marketing has worked)) - I would be thoroughly pissed off - and in future uninformed about GW products because their emails would be going straight to spam.

It's a lesson Privateer Press, and their moronic Gangbangers (who I suspect are behind much of the GW bashing in the sewers) would do well to learn.

peace:)