Last Chance To Buy Legions: Should I Shit My Pants?

Forums poster TTeribble had a great quote about Forge World newsletters: “Th evolution of the Friday email has been pretty great. Excited to see what new stuff is coming -> bored to tears by continual custodes releases -> excited to see what core HH SKU is getting dumpstered this week.” Previously, I wrote about the implications of Elysians going on Last Chance to Buy. Now, the company that put Solar Auxilia stuff on LCtB on the same day as it announced a new Solar Auxilia transport has struck again. Legion upgrade kits are, with zero fanfare or explanations, going on Last Chance to Buy.

This is greatly upsetting to anyone invested in Horus Heresy/Age of Darkness games. Be they a fan of Space Marines, a dude who just likes 7e rules better that 8e, or a Chinese recasting factory worker, they all have something to lose. They all have reasons to fear that Horus Heresy is getting the axe. That doesn’t sound like a very reasonable business decision, but FW hasn’t been the most rational actor of late.

Besides, despite all my claims that Horus Heresy is the perfect game for Games Workshop – in that it basically has Space Marines and nothing else – it surely isn’t promoted as much. Even Lord of the Rings Hobbit Battle Companies get more coverage than HH. From posts on Warhammer Community to White Dwarf articles, you might as well think that Age of Darkness doesn’t exist. And with Alan Bligh’s sudden death last year, the game lost one of its major developers.

So is the game dying? It’s hard to say. One ray of hope is that it isn’t the entirety of the Legion conversion range going on the chopping block. What we’re losing are all the legion torsos, MK II shoulder pads (as well as any bundles that involved them), Cataphracti pads (didn’t fit with plastic Termies) and some duplicate materials.

What we’re losing is all the stuff that you can’t fit on a Primaris Marine and pads for the only Power Armor mark not to be released in plastic.

It’s hard to say what are the exact implications of that. Maybe someone from GW stepped into the garage that’s the FW HQ and told them to rationalize their production. Maybe removing SKUs is the only recourse a company that will never lower prices can do. Maybe FW is just bad at business and is flailing helplessly as fans, tired from shitty QA, erratic releases, and high pricing turn to Chinese recasters or even abandon the game.

Bad times are ahead for all the fans of Age of Darkness. We’re not gonna see any plastic MK IIs, that’s for sure. Even the resin ones might not be long for this world. As for the other releases, only time will tell.

I wonder what will they cancel on the day that Alpharius is released.