aelfwine wrote:
What the guy might have seen was a product mock up.
Someone decides "hey, we should consider such and such a product" and they create a few products to display. You don't need to make new moulds just, say, use a bunch of studio conversions. The result will be "something like this." Such a potential product might have been requested by marketting, or even suggested by production or design. The "game plan" for the roll out of the product might have been discussed in a few meetings surrounding it. "So we'll take something like this, and make it the official starter set, and use it to replace MoM; what do you think."
The Warseer spy might well have sat in on one of those meetings.
Alas, just because a mock up was made does not mean that such a thing might actually BE made, or that if it is made, that the thing will be released soon. Making a gaming product is a long, and weird, process. It doesn't help that these threads always remind me of Cold War Kremlin watchers looking at hazy photographs from the May Day parade. "The Secretary of Far Eastern Agriculture is having a cigarette! Do you think that symbolises a radical change in Russia's relations with Mao's China?" The truth of the matter is probably that GW makes things up as they go along. Many things are proposed. A few are released.
A lot of what you've said is what I was thinking...I just didn't say it out loud.
However, I think GW has missed their opening, based on their precedent. They'd need to release a 2nd edtion WotR rulebook to justify a new boxed game, based on their usual practice. The op at Warseer, cockney_nightmare, seems adamant that what he saw was a wip boxed game for WotR, ruling out the possibility that this could reshape into a series of army boxed sets. But...maybe what he saw wasn't a boxed game at all, and was never intended to be, but someone he was with told him it was. I wish guys with such valuable information would be more detailed. You don't have to reveal any employee's names, just spill a few more beans!
I would recommend to anyone who hasn't already done so to read through the threads of the same discussion at Warseer and TLA (you don't need an account to read through either website's threads).