Is Wizkids trying to irritate the fan base?
I want to stress that this is still at the rumor stage, but rivercitytoys added some confirmation to a rumor that after a second production run of their new Unleashed set WizKids will cease production of that set. The following is what he claims to be part of an email he received from one of his distributors:
"Wizkids also contacted us concerning DC Unleashed. After they have
finished filling our initial order for DC Unleashed they are only going to do
one more run, then the set will no longer be in print. This will make DC
Unleashed one of the rarest and hard to get sets in the Heroclix line.
Any order placed will be filled 100% by Wizkids and must be taken when it
arrives. We expect our order will begin getting filled in June or July. If
you would like to place an order please let me know as soon as possible."
The entire thread (which will include any additional confirmations, denials or clarifications as the day wears on, I suspect) can be found here. I likely won't have time to do more than this post today.
Probably the keys to all this are two:
How large are these production runs? (That's the important question.)
&
What's the relationship between production runs and the "waves" the fans have become so accustomed to hearing about?
See, each time a new set comes out the distributors and retailers tend to get a portion of their overall order in a first wave, then a week or more later they get their second wave, etc. until their order is complete. Most likely that simply has to do with shipping capacity at any given time, and has little to do with the quantity produced.
This may be nothing more than an attempt to make the second set of orders as strong as possible - leaning harder on the limited edition/ collectible aspect of this game.
Heroclix update on an earlier topic: While I haven't followed it up to see if this is the official word, I have it from one reasonable source that the selection of clix that made the cut in the Universe set may have had less to do with exacting character selections than with manufacturing realities.
The word is that the molds for each sculpt are part of a rack of molds, so if they wanted to have a given clix in the set they had to take whatever others were connected to that mold, too. This could explain some of the seemingly odd selections and rejections in that set. It was a case of trying to choose the racks that gave them their best choices over all. It could also reduce the argument for the seemingly progressive disappearance of Pulse Wave from the Marvel Heroclix (the latest DC set included it) to the level of coincidence, though there is some thought that the older Pulse Wave figures might be seeing retirement so that they can attach a higher point cost to the ability. After the rules changes of this past fall Pulse Wave became more powerful.
I'm off into another busy day - a hump day in a week with all the work but one less day to do it in, as this company has Good Friday on its holiday list.
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