Warhammer 40K Limited Edition Fatigue?

An interesting Newsletter arrived today from Games Workshop. It appears there are still quite a few Limited Edition Warhammer Army Books and Warhammer 40K Codices left for Chaos Daemons. This, by itself, seems surprising after the Limited Edition Chaos Space Marines Codex and the Limited Edition Dark Angels Codex sold out in a few hours.

Even more surprising, the newsletter seems to indicate the Games Workshop might take them down – “Dreadfleet”-style – before they are all sold out in the very near future.

#1 – A Games Workshop Newsletter on Chaos Daemons

Here is the wording of the newsletter from Games Workshop

We recently unleashed limited editions of Warhammer: Daemons of Chaos and Codex: Chaos Daemons. There were eight limited edition books in all – four variants of each book, in order to represent the Chaos gods.

We wanted to let you know that we’re down to the last few copies and they will be gone soon, meaning this weekend is your last chance to secure a copy.

So choose which god to pledge your allegiance to before it’s too late. After all, no one likes to displease the Chaos powers…

#2 – In Order To Avoid Disappointment…?

It seems those books didn’t go nearly as well as the Limited Edition Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels Codices. Of course, Games Workshop did change a few things with each new 6th Edition release.

1. The LE Chaos Space Marines Codex was limited to only 1000 copies worldwide. It also appeared largely by “surprise”, with few people expecting a LE Codex. It was quickly (as in, a few hours) bought up by hard-core fans and savvy eBay-Traders, who in turn commanded stellar prices for these books.
2. The Dark Angels Codex already came in a run of 2000 copies worldwide. Ebay-prices weren’t as crazy, but it still sold out quickly.

The LE Chaos Daemons Codex, most recently, came in not one, but four different versions, one for each of the Chaos Gods. There also wasn’t a precise number published by Games Workshop about how many of these books would be available worldwide.

It is probably fair to assume that there were at least 4000 copies for Warhammer 40K alone (1000 for each of the 4 Gods). Quite possibly, many more.

#3 – What Happened?

So what happened. Three (not mutually exclusive) scenarios are possible.

1. Warhammer 40K players don’t care enough anymore for the Limited Edition stuff. Being bombarded with a deluge of limited and “until-stocks-last” stuff over the past half-year, people inevitably became jaded.
2. Ebay-traders gave this one a pass. With only 1000 or 2000 copies worldwide, the sheer amount of eBay-trading (to me) suggests that the more or less professional traders bought up large amounts of these books, possibly more than those bought by “genuine” collectors. Not knowing the exact print-run might have convinced them to give this one a pass.
3. Games Workshop printed a lot of Limited Edition books. Given that no number was put on the LE print-run, maybe Games Workshop did try (and perhaps succeed) in getting a lot of these books out.. far more than 4000 or even 8000.
4. Daemons simply are not that popular. Perhaps the demand for Chaos Daemons, including for the books, truly is much lower than for the two “power-armour” books for Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels.

What do you think?

Z.