Internal investigation split box?

[daemonkin]

With the new consolidated box does anyone know if wyrd will do a special order box for false witnesses and Alain Reid? The investigators were from m2e but the rest is new. I’d rather not buy the investigators a second time. 
 

d.

[Adran]

16 minutes ago, daemonkin said:

With the new consolidated box does anyone know if wyrd will do a special order box for false witnesses and Alain Reid? The investigators were from m2e but the rest is new. I’d rather not buy the investigators a second time. 
 

d.

This sounds like it should fit the special order requirements. I'd have normally expected the next update to the program around this month, but with the world in lockdown it might be later.

[theamazingmrg]

Honestly, I'm not sure its worth the hassle of special ordering.  It would all depend on how the special orders are packaged.

 

Looking at Wayland Games' site (the only UK place I know that has the special orders online), there are three types of Special Order, single models (like Agent 46), a group of minions (Order Initiates or Good Ol' Boys), and one box that's combined (Elijah Borgmann and the Firebranded).

 

If Alan and the False Witnesses are packaged together, it might be worth  getting the special order (as the Elijah set is only £22).  But if they are separate items (and they may well be so that Journalist players can get the False Witnesses without needing to get Alan as well), then the pricing will probably be similar to the other sets: £12 for the single model, and £19 for the group of minions (So £31+ in total).  It's only £31.32 to pre-order the Internal Investigation set.  It would be easier to just grab the box and either throw away, or sell the Investigators, or even use them for some kind of conversion.   

 

Of course, it all depends on how the special order is implemented and how much it would cost.

[Adran]

14 minutes ago, theamazingmrg said:

Honestly, I'm not sure its worth the hassle of special ordering.  It would all depend on how the special orders are packaged.

 

Looking at Wayland Games' site (the only UK place I know that has the special orders online), there are three types of Special Order, single models (like Agent 46), a group of minions (Order Initiates or Good Ol' Boys), and one box that's combined (Elijah Borgmann and the Firebranded).

 

If Alan and the False Witnesses are packaged together, it might be worth  getting the special order (as the Elijah set is only £22).  But if they are separate items (and they may well be so that Journalist players can get the False Witnesses without needing to get Alan as well), then the pricing will probably be similar to the other sets: £12 for the single model, and £19 for the group of minions (So £31+ in total).  It's only £31.32 to pre-order the Internal Investigation set.  It would be easier to just grab the box and either throw away, or sell the Investigators, or even use them for some kind of conversion.   

 

Of course, it all depends on how the special order is implemented and how much it would cost.

From my understanding, the special order box is effectively the box they would have been in, minus all the already existing models.

So in this case it would be Alan and the false witnesses.

I also expect the price of the special order to be related to the price of the "original" box, so it ought to have a saving.

But I don't know for certain.

[Morgan Vening]

2 hours ago, Adran said:

From my understanding, the special order box is effectively the box they would have been in, minus all the already existing models.

So in this case it would be Alan and the false witnesses.

I also expect the price of the special order to be related to the price of the "original" box, so it ought to have a saving.

But I don't know for certain.

I dunno. I'm kinda disappointed by the last batch of Special Orders.

First batch
Order Initiates - 3 figures of a 6 figure box, $27 vs $50. Saves $23.
Good Ol Boys - 3 figures of a 7 figure box, $27 vs $55. Saves $28. 
Eli and Friends - 3 figures of a 4 figure box, $32 vs $50. Saves $18.
Given sizes of miniatures and excess cards, reasonable pricings.

Second batch
Agent 46 - 1 figure of a 6 figure box, $14 vs $50. Saves $36.

Then we get to the two I have issue with.

Spit Hog - 1 figure of a 5 figure box, $27 vs $35. Saves $8.
Georgy and Olaf - 1 figure of a 4 figure box, $27 vs $35. Saves $8.

While I get in those two boxes that the Special Order models are significantly larger, it's hard to argue that they're ~77% of the value of the box. When the Fire Golem was only ~36% of his. 

Given that Special Orders don't seem to be something that my local stores are interested in dealing with, it just seems like a wasted effort and that it's cheaper (as I wouldn't have to deal with international freight direct from Wyrd) and easier to just buy the box sets, and throw away the Bayou Gremlins and Banjonistas.

Even more so if those boxes are discounted in any way. Miniature Market has Deliverance (Spit + 4 Bayou) for $29.75. So that'd mean only wasting $2.75 for four Bayous. And that's assuming you didn't spend $99 and qualify for free shipping. For international, the difference is even starker. $29.75 + $6.65 Shipping ($36.40) to Australia from Miniature Market. $27 + $28.36 ($55.36) from Wyrd. 

Don't expect these to change (as it'd just peeve people who already paid), but I do hope that Wyrd re-evaluate pricing in the future, or it's going to make Special Orders pointless for anything bar an Agent 46 type deal.

If Alan and Witnesses are ~85% of the Internal Investigations box (4 of 6 models), what's the point of making a Special Order?

[solkan]

1 hour ago, Morgan Vening said:

If Alan and Witnesses are ~85% of the Internal Investigations box (4 of 6 models), what's the point of making a Special Order?

I imagine it was the amount of complaining that there was concerning the 'here's a crew with one extra model (the enforcer)' from M1E to M2E.  I mean, imagine if Agent 46 wasn't available single, and everyone had to buy a new Lucius box for that model.  How much complaining would there be about that?

Most of the advantage for the special orders is for "You bought all of the rest of these models last year (or earlier), and you don't want to buy an entire new box for two or three models."  They're probably not trying to make the split boxes competitively priced (because they're an extra complication and increased cost to offer).  

But, yeah, like you said, it seems like a lot more hassle than it's worth in most cases.  But Wyrd's stuck as the water provider in the "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" situation.  If small businesses could do anything about the cost of shipping, they would.

[Morgan Vening]

8 hours ago, solkan said:

I imagine it was the amount of complaining that there was concerning the 'here's a crew with one extra model (the enforcer)' from M1E to M2E.  I mean, imagine if Agent 46 wasn't available single, and everyone had to buy a new Lucius box for that model.  How much complaining would there be about that?

Most of the advantage for the special orders is for "You bought all of the rest of these models last year (or earlier), and you don't want to buy an entire new box for two or three models."  They're probably not trying to make the split boxes competitively priced (because they're an extra complication and increased cost to offer).  

But, yeah, like you said, it seems like a lot more hassle than it's worth in most cases.  But Wyrd's stuck as the water provider in the "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" situation.  If small businesses could do anything about the cost of shipping, they would.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I think the Special Order program conceptually is both necessary (for the A46 reason you mentioned) and awesome. I took full advantage of the Wave 1 stuff.

My issue is purely with two items in Wave 2, and the potential for there to be an issue (Alan Reid) with Wave 3.

Some of it is pricing, but some of it is also Wyrd making some wrong choices, IMO. They decided to box the Spit Hog with Bayou Gremlins, and G&O with Banjonistas. Some consideration to doing that differently might have helped.

Like with the Internal Investigations box. That's going to annoy two groups of people. Guild completists who already have the Investigators (of which I'm one), and Nellie players who aren't interested in Lucius. I understand that Wyrd want to shrink their SKU's a bit, but some of the choices in doing so just seem strange.

Wyrd being cagey about how things are being grouped, doesn't help. While I already had the Bayou Gremlins, I purchased both the Banjonistas and the Guild Investigators after M3E was released, as a means of supporting the local stores, and because of the Special Order program I didn't think I'd get particularly hosed by that decision. In hindsight, both purchases were probably mistakes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Wyrd. But as I've said in the past, I'm not a fan of just pissing money away, even if I can afford it, and if that means proxies, so be it. But I'd rather not. Making them affordable, even if there's a small "inconvenience tax" on top (like the Wave 1 stuff), is fine. Pricing them that buying retail and having surplus models is actually financially competitive, isn't.

[Antipodean]

For those of us stuck at the bottom of the world, shipping makes the special order items prohibitive.

I wanted to pick up agent 46 but it comes out to about the same price as the whole combined new box.

[solkan]

On 4/15/2020 at 4:30 PM, Morgan Vening said:

Wyrd being cagey about how things are being grouped, doesn't help. While I already had the Bayou Gremlins, I purchased both the Banjonistas and the Guild Investigators after M3E was released, as a means of supporting the local stores, and because of the Special Order program I didn't think I'd get particularly hosed by that decision. In hindsight, both purchases were probably mistakes.

When the Special Order program was announced, one of the things Wyrd tried to do was to explain what it didn't cover:  Existing plastic getting reboxed with other existing plastic.  I think the reasoning there should be fairly straight forward:  If they're repackaging the models to reduce box count, it completely defeats the purpose to provide both boxes.

There was a previous thread or two "discussing" some of the choices made in the repackaging.  I'm just going to say that at least they're splitting stuff like the Backdraft and other mixed-keyword boxes into boxes where the models at least share keywords, or have an explanation for why they're together.

Reasonably speaking, the Karmic Debt box is the "Minako Rei" box.  That's why Wanyudo's in there.  That's inconvenient for Reva players, but 'keyword model out of faction' is going to have those problems.  Same with the various multiple-keyword models.

 

[Morgan Vening]

47 minutes ago, solkan said:

Reasonably speaking, the Karmic Debt box is the "Minako Rei" box.  That's why Wanyudo's in there.  That's inconvenient for Reva players, but 'keyword model out of faction' is going to have those problems.  Same with the various multiple-keyword models.

Yeah, Wanyudo's probably the most egregious issue, from an objective perspective, and if I didn't own one already (and wasn't a collector), would probably be at the top of my gripe list.