A Bitz Problem

Soooo... As many of you know I was looking at my Deathwing army yesterday and for obvious reasons I wanted to add more Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields to my terminator units. Easy right? Go to the GW website, find the bitz I wanted and order a pack of two. My Deathwing army is generally made up of old metal and plastic termies with lots of added bitz so the smaller old termie close combat weapons still work. I found the lightning claw packs with little difficulty and was about to order the thunder hammer packs next to them when I realised that they were power armour arms…. HUH?

I had ordered Thunder Hammer arms a few years back and got the old termie arms with no troubles. It appears that in the meantime GW replaced that bit pack with one containing the newer Iron Hand Thunder Hammer from the Iron Hand squad pack. It looks like this:


I understand why GW has dropped the bitz service back like it did (to save money in a crisis) but as a customer I can’t help but be annoyed. For years I had access to every bit that GW makes and in some cases made as part of their HUGE back catalogue. It is an irritating perceived loss of service that they used to provide such a cool resource only to take it away later. Dwelling on this I busted out my 2004 GW Bitz Catalogue and Hobby Resource Guide. It is amazing how many bitz became out of print and unavailable in one fell swoop. It brings back bad memories of when they discontinued the bitz service. I had been saving for a Gaunt’s Ghosts Tanith guard army. They had the models and when I went to order them I discovered that bitz had been discontinued and that only the Gaunt’s Command Box was available. I should have bought them earlier.

Now there is talk that GW might discontinue they metal models (or suspend production for a short time). I really hope that these rumors are baseless as that would just be a tragically stupid business choice that might drive customers elsewhere for good.

B

P.S. If anyone at GW production reads this… All I really want for Christmas is the Gaunts Troopers blister back in production for a short run. I WILL BUY THEM!!! I PROMISE!!! ☺