That's such a non sequitur. Yeah, they could melt an already cast $60-$70 limited edition Jotum into a $0.06-$0.07 pool of pewter slag. And?
Exactly. You take a risk, maybe you win, maybe you don’t. And a given that folks unhappy and complaining about the blind boxes would likely complain and cry poor if CB were to put LE ITS minis out “normally”. “Oh, why are they only doing this now? Oh, I don’t have the funds now! Oh, they’ll just be more expensive on the secondary market!” It’s kind of neat that rather than take the printed materials as entirely a loss and melt down the minis, they just dumped the old printed materials and made the minis available below what the earlier MSRP was.
And that is about it, in contrast with unrecyclable materials like HIPS were the stock must be sold one way or the other or be destroyed if it remains unsold, metal and now Siocast models can be recycled into raw materials and be casted again as a new model, making loss minimal and avoiding unsold inventory with whatever issues this brings in. Yes, you still loose some part of the investment in electricity and manhours, but there is no pressing issue of having a 60$-70$ model sitting there unsold. The point is CB does not do it to clear out unsold models.
Luckily for me I was able to trade both of them with other exclusives in the following tournament. So no harm has been done. But surely the first impact of this lootbox was... harsh, lol.
It is recyclable, specially at the factory level. Or in other words, post-consumer HIPS is hardly recycled (counter example: Canon does it with toner cartridges), because it's dirty and too disperse. But clean one and in the same place, yep, sometimes into lower grade (third party scrap processors) and others the same product (regrind and feed back into the machine). Bean counters noticed all those runners and failed items let them save some pennies and get the green stamp. Pretty much what happens with *cough*Siocast*cough* nylon. A remelted mini is twice the cost of old one minus the pewter. All the energy and manual work of casting, sorting, packing, mold wear is used up twice, but recovered once. So maybe CB does it to clear out. They could send the manga to recycling too, discarded printed paper gets more money than used paper. Local recycling mafia is setting up buckets for books and magazines ("no brown cardboard here!") so people do the sorting for free (and sold the bucket design to other countries).
Find it ironic if they haveto melt unsold models while people really struggle to find discontinued ones. I need bolts.
Tell me about it - had 'The Shrouded' on order for two months - apparently the store won't be able to get them for at least several more weeks. Thankfully other stores have them - sometimes I have no idea what the distributors and stock levels are playing at.
I’m going to annoy everyone and ask again for a print to order service now… But if you’re starved for Bolts may I suggest the kamau from Varuna? They’re what I use and the kit is almost completely similar. You’ll need to kitbash a spitfire one though.
I'm all in for a "print to order" service. There are several Tohaa models that I didn't get when I had the chance, and now that I cannot get them I miss them. The story of my life...
Same here but for all the new acontecimento minis that were abruptly cancelled. On that day I was a sad panda.
I'd like this for the Sukeul K1 Combi which I am still searching for. Really like the model and plan to use the few similar Tohaa models as proxies.
I think the main thing stopping a print to order service is CB not wanting a two tier retail model. I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of players don't buy direct from CB, they're buying from local stores or online retailers in their own country. In essence CB's main customers are the stores and distributors, rather than us. That's why they started removing products from the catalogue. It wasn't a production capacity issue, it was retailers unwilling to provide ever expanding shelf space for an increasingly vast product line. Part of the reason for creating Code One was also to provide an "Essentials" range that retailers could stock without commiting to the whole catalogue. They will also have seen Privateer Press make a push to cut out the middleman and drive people to direct sales, which did not end well for them (on top of many other decisions by PP that didn't end well) That's why we saw the BFTP boxes. Setting up a couple dozen additional SKUs, providing them to distributors, distributors passing them to stores, stores placing orders with distros, distros placing orders with CB, then CB finding out they've got 5 ABH snipers in stock but 200 orders from distros, and 200 Parvatis but only 100 orders. Its a logistical nightmare. The blind box is a single SKU, distros and Warcors get first pick as it's branded as an ITS box, and if there's any left over they go on their Web store, which there weren't.
This genuinely made me laugh. I recall the debacles from PP… I am experiencing schadenfreude here. I will agree to your statements about why we will be unlikely to see a print to order service. But I’m still going to ask, worst case scenario I get told to shut up and that happens all the time, lol.
Yeah, it would be great, as would the ability to order individual minis from boxes, but I worked in retail long enough to see the reasoning behind what CB does and doesn't do.
Oh definitely agree, I just like to hope aimlessly, lol. I worked in retail for 15 years before I had enough, it was rotting what was left of my soul. I’ll go back to it only when the age of man expires.
Would like this but only because I’ve recently bought the anycubic photon mono 6K and want more and more stuff to print on it…
I doubt any manufacturer in the right mind will do that. Unless it's their distribution model. How else you will sell all these limited Joans and Uxias with books? But... what if instead of 'made to order' model CB just releases small seasonal "Blast from the past" line similar to that GW's Last chance to buy? Some old box/unit preorder for each faction every 6-12 months, then oop. And so on. Oh, who am I kidding, they can't even do something like this with bootleg...
Don't get me wrong, although I would love that they sell everything to print in my house (I don't like pewter that much), I am talking only about discontinued units. They are not going to re-release old models, they will make new sculpts. But in the meanwhile, why not sell those Acon regulars, or Auxilia that are no longer available? I would buy them on their website full price.
So like, I kind of like the idea of "Blast from the past" i live in the middle of no where montana, so finding any LGS that holds infinity in my town is ziplo chance, and the community we build is constantly in flux cause its stupid expensive here now, and so people come and go... but like, i love the models and i keep trying to get some i missed out on as time flows on and i float in and out of the hobby. I tend to only go for the things i like but then again i don't see *everything* and miss stuff. Right now im looking for the Ye Mao and the Guija as the only things im interested in, and since i dont think i an get my hands on the pack to even take a roll of the dice to get lucky im just ganna have to hope and pray they show up on ebay ;_; this at least gave schmucks like me a "chance" mind you i didnt come back to the hobby til the start of march, and now im trying to play catch up on the new releases lol
