"Spartan Games: The Uncharted Seas 50% Discount" Topic

Just poste dthe news on my blog but also decided to share it here as you can do some great deals in the Uncharted Seas range of Spartan games distributed by Wayland Games ( link ). For those wondering what's Uncharted Seas: This is a quick fire game of naval combat, where awesome machines of war fight in a world of high fantasy. There is nothing frilly, or gimmicky in this world – you need to be prepared for deadly carnage as you battle to survive the onslaught of your enemies! We have created eight core races for you to choose from: Dragon Lords, Imperial Humans, Shroud Mages, Iron Dwarves, Bone Griffons, Orc Raiders, Thaniras Elves and the Ralgard. Take a look at these exciting races (links to the right) and choose one that best suits your gaming needs.

I especially like the Coastal Giant!

Cheers and happy wargaming!

Wargame News and Terrain

Original post on my blog: link

No doubt due to Spartan discontinuing distribution of the entire range. Still a good bargain, though, and I believe they plan to sell direct for the foreseeable future, so the game's not quite dead – more like in Specialist Games limbo, by GW parlance.

Just visited their website and read the news, finding it strange but it will probably be a good business decision. As you say still a great bargain!

Cheers

This is why it is impossible to stock some of their ranges. As a store I only get a %40 discount.
So you a customer are getting a better discount than we can. So why should we stock the Uncharted Seas range?

And when will they do it to some of there other ranges as well?

Were you not paying attention? They discontinued distribution of US altogether – stores can no longer buy the stuff from them, and they no longer care about offering under-wholesale discounts from the manufacturer because of that. I agree that you're shafted on any US stock that you've got on hand – it's worth less than what you paid for it now – but this move was hardly a surprise, and most stores either dropped or downsized their US stock ages ago.

It's a more legit point would be to wonder why you should risk stocking anything from them from now on. With US gone, you have to wonder if/when Firestorm Armada will follow suit, with similar uber-discounts through direct sales following. The Dystopian Wars family of games is their current cash cow – if their multi-scale Firestorm scifi ground stuff doesn't take off they'll probably look hard at axing the space combat end of things as well to concentrate on DW.

The local shop's had FSA on deep discount for almost a year, and DW (which was a non-seller as well) for nearly as long. The only company less likely to get new stuff stocked in at this point is Mongoose – three flash-and-flop releases from Spartan was the last straw around here.

Wasn't aware of the issues for retaillers, but as I think about it, why does Wayland Games decides to sell it's own stock at -50%, why just not keep selling their remaining stock at their normal price or slightly discounted?

Because Spartan is selling direct to customers at a huge discount themselves. Wayland quite sensibly wants to sell their remaining stock, since they can no longer get more. They can only do that by matching or bettering Spartan's prices. They're losing money, but it's better to get some return on their investment than sit on dead stock for eternity.

Thanks for the explanation Chief Lacky Rich! Now I truly understand the issue and logics behind the discount given by Wayland Games.

Chief lackey, I have been p[aying attention.

There must be a delay or confusion. I just got some Uncharted Seas F-S-A and Dystopian Wars with my last distributor order only last week on Tuesday to be precise. I got some warf packs, wartower and Orc. Elves fleet box sets. Game cards for F-S-A.

I have not received any notice from either one of my distributors who carry Spartan. Neither have sent out an unavilable any more notice via email.

Interesting if true. I hope the distributors will have a clearance too.

I did just send emails to my distributors asking about this issue.

I'm a little surprised this didn't happen earlier. US ran into a fairly hard wall with little to no room for further expansion. By comparison the other two games have more room to grow. Space games are sort of open-ended that way, aided by a fairly simple timeline approach; there is always more space for someone new to fly out of, and arms races move faster at the high tech end of things.

DW is, I think, either going to tap into the steampunk vibe and rise with, and eventually fall with, that trend, or hit the same development wall US did in another year or two.

RudyNelson, the news broke back on the 23rd:

link

Distributors are rarely the first to know anything in the industry, and quite often they'll deliberately avoid passing along this kind of info simply to help sell a bit more stock at normal rates while they can. They don't want to be stuck with dead stock any more than stores do. Note that you've got till July before the pipeline is cut off, but I expect few if any distributors will be ordering new stock of US at this point.

Ah the 23rd, I was gone to a convention in Nashville. So I did not get back to the internet info world until 27th. Missed the announcement.

I did get an email late this afternoon, saying that the U-S was being discontinued in the USA to distributors.

Chief lacky, I agree about the lack of notification. If I had known it, I would not have gotten copies of the rules or the Orc and Elf fleets.

Still if the sale is deep enough, then I might get some stock but I am not sure.
Thanks.