Steamforged Games, the recent purchaser of long-standing Warhammer rival Warmachine, has good and bad news for fans eager for the game to return to production. According to the publisher, demand from customers, retailers, and event organisers has been “extremely positive” since the acquisition – but meeting this unexpected interest will delay pre-orders and new releases by at least a fortnight.
A news update posted on Steamforged’s website on Thursday states that the firm “has seen a huge response… from player and retailer orders” since it announced its purchase of Warmachine in June, as well as lots of activity on all its social media. The statement adds: “we’ve received a huge influx of requests for new retailer accounts”.
According to the update, Steamforged “anticipated a boom” but has been “humbled” by the scale of demand. On top of that, it’s “getting stock ready for Gen Con”. To handle all of these commitments, “we’ll need to adjust the website pre-order dates so shipping will now start from the end of July instead of mid-July”. The release of the previously announced Kapitan Yana Kovoskiy model will also be pushed into August.
Unexpectedly high demand is the kind of problem that businesses don’t mind having, at least in the short term. However, unreliable stock availability was one of the problems that hampered Warmachine under its original owners Privateer Press, so it’s something Steamforged needs to fix.
Apparently, “plans were already in place to expand US production later this year”, and in light of the high demand, Steamforged has “sped that up to give us a 50% increase in US production by the end of August”. What that means in terms of units per day, the firm has yet to specify.
Additionally “European production is on track to start in August”, and Australia and “other key territories” will follow “as soon as possible”. How much production capacity there will be at those centres remains to be seen.
Most Warmachine minis are produced via ‘direct resin’ – essentially, outsourcing production to high quality 3D printer farms. While that method poses challenges for quality assurance, it is very easy to localise production close to where goods are sold. Digital files for miniatures are trivial to distribute to local manufacturers, unlike molds for casting them.
The new Warmachine two-player starter set will be produced in high intensity polystyrene (HIPS) – the same material that Space Marines and all the other Warhammer 40k factions Games Workshop makes are produced in. The capital cost of HIPS molds is enormous, so its likely that will be produced at a single manufacturing centre.
If you’re unsure what all the fuss is about with Warmachine, or you’re simply intrigued by these cool-looking big robots and monsters, check out our feature on the impact of Warmachine on the development of modern Warhammer 40k.