Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University.  This week, Thorne looks at the problem with Game Workshop's new preordering system and comments on the slowing of Disney Lorcana sales.

The new preordering system Games Workshop implemented in November does not appear to have worked well for very long.  The idea was to make sure stores knew how many copies of a new release they could expect to get.  Two weeks before a release date (I think, the times seemed to vary), Games Workshop emailed out a list to stores containing the new releases for that date.  Stores were supposed to enter in how many of each new release it wanted and return them to Games Workshop.  The stores were supposed to receive an email the week orders went in with a list of the quantities each store would be allocated.  Then orders were to go to the store’s Games Workshop representative, who would put in the orders the Thursday before the release date.

I never could figure out how this system was supposed to work better than the previous one.  In the old system, stores received the prerelease list a week or so before release date with the maximum order quantities at which each store was capped.  Stores would then submit their orders to their representative, with stores with large GW communities complaining about how few of each item the store would receive and how much caviling they could expect from their customers when they realized they were not going to get the new boxed set on the release date, if at all.

The problem is that there has been a breakdown in communications between stores and Games Workshop somehow.  We and several other stores followed the new procedure and received the orders satisfactorily through the army box sets on Black Friday.  Since then, though we and several other stores have not received any of the new releases solicited under the new program; No Necrons Codex, no Legion Imperialis, no new Necormunda, nothing.  We're getting restocks alright, although they are taking a couple of weeks to arrive, so I worry about doubling up on orders, but no new releases.  Happily, at least here, we've seen little interest on the Legion Imperialis figures.  In fact, those people that preordered them canceled their preorders after we ordered, so I guess we should be glad nothing arrived.

The Disney Lorcana frenzy appears to have peaked, at least for First Chapter booster boxes, which are now selling for around keystone, give or take $10.  Booster boxes of most TCGs sell for about 10% to 25% over cost so seeing booster boxes of the game move at keystone online is still pretty good, but we are not seeing demand pushing the price up to triple cost any more.  First Chapter Troves and Gift Sets are still commanding prices 20-30% over Ravensburger’s MSRP.

Rise of the Floodborn is still in high demand, with booster boxes still selling for triple cost as are the Troves and Collector Sets.  Even with a Floodborn booster pack included, the Floodborn decks are moving slowly.  It appears a heavy collector market has driven purchases of the product rather than much interest in play (see "'Disney Lorcana' Hits Pivotal Point").  We're supposedly going to see a restock of Floodborn boosters in the next week or so and will see how much demand there is for the product.  The league kits provided by Ravensburger for Lorcana are top notch.  I just wish the company had looked at past TCGs releases and launched it better.

Comments?  Send them to castleperilousgames@gmail.com.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.