Why, Why indeed????

My venue got 0 (ZERO) cases of AoD. They did not even get a few boosters to sell.

Normally this would not bother me. I have not bought a booster (except three for a marquee) since they announced set retirement last year. Except that my wife gave me cash to buy a case for my birthday. She even ensured that the venue ordered a case for me (great wife).

I stopped by and he had none. He called his distributors and none were on the way. I told him to forget it and bought some of the new star wars minis. I do not think that it is a better game -- but it is available. I am going to use the rest to take my wife out to dinner and get a new driver.

Y'know, just to prove Murphy's Law is alive and well in the 21st Century, we were sent three cases of Dark Age boosters by the Distributor. I had two player drive over an hour just to get their alloted 3 boosters, only to find we had none at all. *sigh*

that was absolutely hilarious. hell, i laughed so hard, i nearly puked!

The same thing happened to me.

A few weeks ago, I placed a pre-order, and now, not only does my local venue not stock up on the release date, but their vendor informs them that all he recieved were Starters.

Granted, the player base has shunk, but MW is being pulled from shelf rotation here like it went out of style. Players quit after all the problems with the artillery fix and the end of effective tournament support. Conflicts of personality at my venue didn't help either.

We got all of ours, do you know who the distributor is?

We have Alliance out of Fort Wayne, IN.

Right now, the supply is being artificially controlled. AoD is the new base set, so it will be produced in larger numbers then the expansion sets. So I doubt there is actually a real shortage, but rather, a bit of market control to drive the playerbase crazy (anyone remember what it was like when the PS2 was released...this is the same thing)...

Two stores in this area got nothing out of several case pre-orders. The only store in the local area, that I have visited, to get boosters had to order a case of starters to get the boosters. They ordered five cases of boosters and one case of starters. They got the one case of starters and only two cases of boosters.

The venue where I work got nothing but I didn't pre-order with the distributor (who got a 1/3 fill rate). I had no pre-orders for anything since most of the local players felt cheated by Falcon's Prey and were unwilling to buy anything without seeing the stats. Now they see the stats and want o buy but can't cause I can only get Starters in.

Well, first of all, I think some of it has to do with poor management of the venue. There's a tendency to discout the shrinking MechWarrior fan base in favor of the HeroClix line that the store owners themselves enjoy. There were also incidents between members of the MechWarrior "group" that has reduced attendence at weekly games to two or three, on average. And that was after the post-AoD and meta-game exodus. They'd all buy boosters, but the store doesn't usually go out of its way unless people like myself shell out cash up-front. In fact, some of the reasons I buy as much as I do is to prod them into putting more on the shelves.

Another problem is that MechWarrior is so unpopular around here. The venue I prefer is 10 minutes by car, but carries little in the way of products. There is another store - not a venue - that carries the line, but that's about 40 to 50 minutes by car, and I loathe the trip because of the traffic.

In my area, the MW players tend to be older than the MK and HC players. The MW players also tend to buy case lots at the start of a new release. We generally spend a LOT of money early. Tthe venues will order cases the first week of release and keep very little on hand after the first month. The MK and HC players are younger and most cannot afford to buy cases, so they buy a few boosters a week.

It just seems that the last three release of MW have seen decreasing allocations from distributors during the first few weeks. WHy??? Distributors should not be sitting on cases. If they do not sell to me today, I look elsewhere tomorrow. They do not want to lose business. Is WK sitting on cases? I got money to spend -- if I do not get what I want from the venue -- then I buy singles on ebay from people who seem to have no problems getting cases.

Allocating cases does not spread out my buying. I will not buy a case next month because I already bought the singles that I need online. I end up getting less, but I only get what I need.

Yes did anyone listen to me. If you all by from the same Venue. That can get all the cases because of the fact other venues in the area also have to get their case for general at the same time. Now if you By for Different Venues some may have to pay more but your whining will not be around. Next even your venue is the only one in your town thats does not mean it is the only venue the Disbractor sells to. Also if your envoys want more cases tell to order from Wizkids themselves not the middle man. What we have is a middle problem ok not the big beginner maker problem ok. Then You get your at what ever time you it gets released. what you are doing is call cornering the market because you donot help all your venues the other venues in a big city would each take one or two cases each now you big venue when everyone buys cases is stormed for by people marching say I want my case well he says I only got two their are already gone.
No ever thinks of the venues that may have costed about 20-50 more but you get the case faster.

Of three venues I know well; one received all their booster & starter cases, another received all their booster cases, but was shorted on starters; and the last venue was short one booster case but received all the starters.

As you can see we're pretty lucky, plenty of AOD to go around. So I really have to believe this differs by region, by distributor, or some unknown factor. And I really doubt it's an evil conspiracy, but you never can tell...

From what my guys are telling me is that my venu got 1 out of 9-10 cases, and half a case of starters, and there were 11 reserves for just starters.....
Not a happy bunch this weekend :angry:

From my experience as a semi-retailer (I buy directly from the distributors in case lots, selling to a small number friends and other contacts), it almost all comes down to your pre-order status. Distributor agents love places that preorder multiple cases, do so very early, and pay on shipment. A lot of smaller venues will order only one or partial cases and seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to allocations for the first wave. I'm sure it's at least partly that it's easier to fill and ship full and multiple case orders than cracking open cases and repacking partials.

For myself, I teamed up with a local venue for my initial orders (4 cases of boosters, 1 of starters). We received everything on the street date. I called the next day looking for more cases of boosters and was told that none were available, although there were still starters around.

I'm not sure of the reason for the shortage of Boosters this time around (the next upcoming release is Pirates, which is all cards so uses a different production line than the clix figures). Best guess: getting a line of starters produced as well probably reduced the number of boosters that could be put together, as well as perhaps the slightly increased complexity of the boosters (cards in each box now as well, although I can't say whether color-coding the mech shells made the process simpler or more complex at the factory level (yellow for the ultra-rares, and blue and green for uniques and LEs (vice versa?)).

They may also have over-estimated the demand for starters... I personally think they're great and will probably end up owning at least 2 (though I'll probably trade away the extra unique mechs/pilots). The ability to download the new rules and SECs probably hurt the demand for the paper reprints in the boxes, and terrain and battlemats are often provided by the BMs. Starters are awesome for beginners though! They provide a large quantity of points that work well together and let them jump into tourneys with the more established players.

I'm being told by my agent (great agent, great distributor -- PM me if you would like a referral) that more should be in next week, and I've already put my name in for 2 more booster cases, and will probably up that to 4 or more. I love this new set, and a lot of players seem to as well, although a lot of the old-guard players are still in wait-and-see mode and some of them have seriously cut back their initial purchases because of set retirement.

However, demand seems to be up slightly overall and should stay that way if WizKids can keep the events supported well and not go the way of Mage Knight (lots of events with all-card prize support that generate no interest...).

I also like the seeming reduction of Las in boosters (not sure if that one's really true or not yet), which should help interest in supported events, but really hope they switch from the current prize support plans and keep at least one, if not 2 mechs as prize support for each tourney.

Hmmm... seems like in this long-winded ramble I got off subject a bit... My apologies, and we now return this thread to it's regularly scheduled discussion...

Thank you very much Tace. That was very informative. I never thought the addition of cards might affect the availability of boosters.