Glut of Pokemon? Not Here

 

If there is a huge supply of 30^th Anniversary Pokemon boxes and Elite Trainer Kits floating around out there, we sure have not seen it (See “Pokemon TCG Sellers Melt Down on Discord”). I have no doubt it is out there but I also figure the Pokemon Company is directing most of the product to mass market stores. We have had customers regale us with tales of standing in line at Target at 7 a.m., waiting until the store opened to join the crowds of collectors and resellers hoping to grab a box or fifteen of the Pokemon 30^th Anniversary Elite Trainer Kits. Another customer told us how she and her family waited in a line a block long at the local Sam’s Club to get Elite Trainer Kits. Even with the staff at Sam’s Club limiting purchasers to 2 Kits each, they ran out about 5 people before my customer could purchase any. Meanwhile hobby game stores are getting so heavily allocated that one distributor got the store one 30^th Anniversary Elite Trainer Kit.  Not one case of Kits, one Kit, along with single units of a couple of other 30^th Anniversary items.  Meanwhile, Sam’s Club gets enough Elite Trainer Kits to offer two of them to each person in a line stretching a block long.

Castle Questions Best Horror Creature

 For Halloween, which is the best horror creature?  Syd and Dev have thoughts.

GW New Releases

 Releasing Octobar 31st. 

Pricelist

New Duardin emerge from the Khazalite Holds to march upon the enemies of Order with a new army set. This limited added value box has all new miniatures and alternative art battletome with new rules to start collecting this new faction for Age of Sigmar.

Along with this new great Army box comes the new season of Age of Sigmar Organized Play Kit. This kit is made to host up to 32 players in your store and includes 32 sets of tokens, 16 Coin Malleus, 8 range finders, 4 round trackers and an amazing medal for the overall winner. Players will be flocking to your store for a chance to get these exclusive items. Make sure you ask your account manager how you can get yours.

The Warhammer Day Miniature 2026 has arrived! Available for a limited time,Slaves to Darkness - OathFulfilled will make a great centrepiece addition to any collection, and can be used in games of Age of Sigmar as a Darkoath Warqueen.

Deploy an Armageddon themed battlefield in minutes with a ready painted terrain set. Designed to get you into the fight as soon as possible, the terrain area footprints are included in the set.

Distribution Problems

 Distribution problems with Wizards and Magic have just exacerbated (See “Reality Fracture Shipping  Times Fractured”).  Unlike with the Hobbit, I did not read of any stores not getting prize Play boosters for Reality Fracture in time for the pre-release.  However, the delivery window for pre-release kits was the shortest I can remember.  Typically, kits arrived 1-3 days before pre-release Friday. With Reality Fracture, our pre-release kits did not arrive from UPS until about 1 p.m. on Friday and I read of stores whose kits were delivered 10 minutes before the store had scheduled the start of their first pre-release. Based on UPS tracking I was unsure as to whether our kits would arrive on time for our pre-release weekend.

I hope Hasbro and Wizards are taking a hard look at their supply chain problems and that the oversupply of Pokemon 30^th Anniversary product makes it to hobby game stores, which based on the calls we have had at the store and comments online, could certainly sell them.  

Changes to Magic Booster Packs

 WotC announced a number of changes to its booster packs, starting with the Nautcis release in early 2027. Play boosters are now just boosters, God packs, last seen during the Theros block, make a return with a chance of 1 in 300 in collector boosters and 1 in 1000 in regular boosters.  Collector boosters will lose 2 common and one uncommon card, dropping their card count to 12 and regular boosters will no longer have a guaranteed foil in every pack as only mythic rares and rare cards will now have foil treatments.

Bubbles Burst

 We have seen the current state of the trading card game market before.  At least twice.  After Magic released in 1993, 1994 and 1995 saw a huge number of trading card games hit the market. None of them are widely played today and  players either buy extremely limited print runs that are one and done or play with digital cards.  We saw a second run in the early 2000s with the success of Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh. Once again, no games from that era have survived to the current day.

The big difference between those runs and the current one is that people played those games. Most of the people buying current TCGs are looking at them at investments, rather than games. Wonders of the First,  with its NFT versions of card is making the resalability of the cards a selling point. Unfortunately, the one time we ran a demo session of the game, no one showed up.

Buy TCGs if you want to play them, not as an investment  vehicle.

Games Workshop New Releases

Releasing Oct 17.  If you want any pre-order with us by noon Sept 29th.

 The Adeptus Custodes.

The apex of the Emperor’s genetic achievement.

His Aquilon Terminators, more akin to battleships than infantry, arrive brand new in plastic for the first time.

Also releasing are a number of Adeptus Custodes kits that were previously only available in Adeptus Custodes Support Battle Group.

Codex: Adeptus Custodes, hitting the shelves with new lore & rules. Available in a new battle focused format, fine tuned for battlefield action.

The new Adeptus Custodes Combat Patrol joins the ranks of our current range. Combat Patrols are customer favorites due to their thematic contents and added value. Be sure to ask us how to best stock these popular items