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I, like many others, was underwhelmed by Games Workshop’s Warhammer Day. There have been so many rumors of things to come, from a Horus Heresy box set to new Chaos Space Marines to even new Squats. And yet the products on display were just… lacking.

For Warhammer 40k we got Genestealer Cults, Adeptus Custodes, and Sisters of Silence, but the box set only comes with two new figures–one Cultists and one Custodes–and the disappointing result was just a pair of Codexes. The same was true of Age of Sigmar (one model and one battletome), Blood Bowl got a revived game in Dungeon Bowl that really no one was asking for, and the Horus Heresy offering was, while an awesome sculpt, just the Primarch Jaghatai Khan and not the expected boxed set. We did get a rather cool new Warcry box (which I am most interested in for the terrain, though the two new warbands do look pretty great), and then Warhammer Underworlds Harrowdeep got some really neat models but, hey, it’s just Warhammer Underworlds.

So where was the good stuff? I have a theory, and the theory is called “The Global Pandemic”.

What Happened to the Supply Chain Anyway?

There are a lot of causes of the supply chain issue, but they mainly come down to three things: ships, trucks and containers.

Ships: They’re not in the right places, or their in the right places but are bottlenecked. The problem during the pandemic was that ships were either stopped from going where they wanted to go, or they were taking unusual trips delivering emergency goods to unusual places. They ended up in these unusual places, having dropped all their cargo, but had no cargo to pick up because the port in question had no exports.

On the other hand, many ships are chock full of containers, but are just sitting in long lines, waiting for their chance to unload at ports that are completely overwhelmed.

Trucks: There aren’t enough drivers for the trucks. When the pandemic hit, a lot of truck drivers were initially laid off and not all of them came back to trucking–they found other jobs in other industries. Also, there’s a problem that full trucks, with truck drivers, are simply waiting around because there’s nowhere to offload the container they’re hauling.

Containers: Containers have either piled up in strange locations (see the thing about ships) or they are waiting in massive piles for trucks to haul them away, but there’s no trucks.

It’s basically this: a port can only offload a container from a ship if the container has a place to go. And there is no place to put the containers because there aren’t enough trucks. So the ships can’t be unloaded, so the ships end up in huge lines at ports.

It’s a mess of $1 trillion worth of inventory waiting to be delivered that can’t be delivered.

The Supply Chain: What About Brexit?

Make no mistake about this: Brexit has effed up Games Workshop’s supply chain. In Britain, 25,000 truck drivers had to leave the country because of changes to visas because of Brexit. And that was a problem independent of the pandemic. There is now an estimated 100,000 shortfall of truck drivers in the UK.

If you don’t live in the UK you may be unfamiliar with how bad things are getting there in terms of supply chain. There have been bread shortages and petrol shortages. Anything that requires a constant and steady stream is being impacted every day at grocery stores.

Not that this was a surprise to anyone except the Brexiters. The consultancy group Deloitte wrote “The introduction of tariffs, customs duties and other barriers to trade could have significant implications for how manufacturers source materials and components, assemble products and access consumer markets. With a high number of small and medium businesses in the supply chain, the implications could be significant if the supplier base is not ready to adapt to new trading regimes to maintain price and production and supply standards.”

Games Workshop and the Supply Chain: What Does This Have to Do With Warhammer Day?

My theory is this: at a time when Games Workshop should be delivering the goods in major quantities in anticipation of the Christmas buying season, they are simply unsure of what products they will be able to sell at any given time. They don’t know if they will have the resources to manufacture certain goods, they don’t know if they will have the ability to ship certain goods, and so they aren’t able to announce the arrival of certain goods.

I believe that much more was planned for Warhammer Day. Games Workshop, we already know, plans their work years in advance because that’s how long it takes to drive a product to market. So they probably had plans for what was going to launch Q4 2021 at least eighteen months ago, if not more. And, little by little, over the course of the pandemic, they have lost their ability to deliver on those goals.

Games Workshop’s supply chain–which, don’t forget, was a proposed cause of the Cursed City collapse–has been in danger for a year now, and they haven’t been able to produce on schedule.

Games Workshop and the Supply Chain: Who Is To Blame?

Well, the pandemic is going to take the biggest blame, and you can lay the effects of the pandemic at the feet of anyone you like, depending on your political persuasion. I don’t pretend to know British politics well enough to assign the blame to a certain party. Suffice it to say that the pandemic was not handled well by a lot of governments.

Also, Brexit is to blame, and it’s easy to lay blame there: on the Brexiters. Say what you want about conditions before Brexit, the separation has been brutal. From an outsider’s perspective (which, admittedly, I am as an American), even giving consideration for Brexit having the best of intentions, it has been a bungled operation with countless side effects. And, to be perfectly clear, the side effects were foreseen by a lot of people. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

Also, Games Workshop is partly to blame. I don’t think that any business had a crystal ball and could have predicted the pandemic, but Games Workshop has a problem with their PR and marketing departments. Games Workshop acts like a black box too much of the time, so when problems arise they simply do not make statements saying that there was a problem with their supply chain. This was most notable with Cursed City, but I think it’s happening again. Games Workshop has their secrets they want to reveal–and there’s nothing wrong with that business strategy–but they refuse to admit an error when there is one.

Because, to be perfectly fair, a little bit of communication from Games Workshop on the issue of their supply chain would go a long way in affording them customer goodwill. There have been some people who have postulated that Games Workshop is unable to say anything negative about their release schedule because it will impact their stock price, but speaking as someone who has at least a little insight into big business (certainly I have worked for companies that dwarf Games Workshop in revenue) that simply isn’t the case. A good PR department is one that does damage control, not one that shutters the windows and locks the doors and refuses to talk.

Games Workshop and the Supply Chain: Where Does That Leave Us?

If I’m right and Games Workshop’s thin offerings at Warhammer Day are the result of supply chain problems, then I think that we only need to look at the global supply chain crisis for a forecast of how things will go and: the future is bleak. The general consensus is that there is no quick fix to the supply chain issue, and we’re going to be facing this for at least next six to nine months, if not longer.

I’m not trying to blame Games Workshop for a global crisis. I’m merely saying: instead of “overpromise and underdeliver” try just telling us the truth about where things stand.

I’ve made it clear that I think it’s okay to like Games Workshop–that they’re not the big bad enemy–but even a good company makes mistakes and can have poor policies. If Games Workshop wants to restore the faith of its customers in the face of an increasing and ongoing crisis, then they can start with their public relations.