Ok... I'm gonna start this saying that I'm from Spain, and this is what happened to me: We, a group of friends, ordered 15 core boxes to a local store (not a FLGS, it was a book store), but they messed up and ordered the boxes too late. So yesterday, the store called us and told us that all the core boxes are sold out and they can't bring more until they restock (no date available).

We went on a crazy hunt for Core boxes over the internet (in Spanish) and they're all sold out. We were calling every gaming store we knew, although they're all pretty far from us, and they either had no cores already, or the few ones they still have left are reserved. Now, one of the guys from our group is travelling to a big city this weekend, and we have tasked him with going to EVERY gaming store there and try to get as many boxes as he can. Also, I looked to buy the cores in english, but looking in the FFG webpage, it seems they're also sold out already.

So, I'm asking... Is this thing happening everywhere? Are there avalaibility problems where you live also? Or is it just that FFG Spain underestimated the number of sales they were gonna get here and printed too few cores? Or it was FFG fault overall?

This same thing happened with Arkham Horror and it basically killed the game here, waiting months for a reprint. I don't want that to happen with L5R.

PS. I have made a really hard effort here to not do a cursing rant of this thread, 'cause the amount of hate I could pour in it right now will probably be enough to give the Shadowland's Taint to everybody reading it...

I think FFG got the card distribution right this time in terms of buying 3 cores gets you a really nice core of cards for all seven clans. So, I think its not just the hardcore competitive players that are buying 3 sets already. I think many people might look at 3 core sets and say its just like buying an expensive board game which should give you a good in-house experience and then its a bonus if you like the game so much that you will keep buying the expansion packs for awhile.

With all the promo and marketing effort that has gone into the launch I would be surprised if FFG underestimated the initial demand by a huge degree.

Quick question, are you looking for a Spanish translated version? I wasn't even aware that they translated FFG games.

In any case, English versions are readily available all over the place, I haven't seen any outages at any of the major hubs so far. FFG is a world wide distributor but how much of a product is ordered and available in any given country probably differs quite a bit.

You should have no trouble picking it up at large hubs however like Amazon and if you are talking about picking up 15 core sets, most places like Amazon will offer free shipping world wide on a order that large anyway.

Short answer however, from a brief search, its heavily stocked every where that I looked.

38 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

Quick question, are you looking for a Spanish translated version? I wasn't even aware that they translated FFG games.

Yeah, a lot of people in my group are not so good at english (or they don't speak it at all) , so we try to play with spanish material whenever we can.

As far as I know, L5R it's translated to Spanish, French, and Italian (maybe german, also?). And yeah, they translated every FFG game to spanish. We even have our own FFG webpage, http://www.fantasyflightgames.es/

In Amazon, I've only found 1 new core and 3 or 4 used cores in spanish. We'll try to get it in spanish, but we'll resort to english if we can't. Problem is, a lot of our group players (probably around 50%) will drop if it's not in spanish. Meaning they'll be only 6 people left to play the game.

I asked about the cores in english because in the FFG.com webpage is already marked as sold out.

Yeah that might be an issue, but you know FFG customer service is excellent, you might consider contacting them and explaining your situation. They are extremely helpful and might be able to point you in the right direction.

3 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

I wasn't even aware that they translated FFG games.

In any case, English versions are readily available all over the place

Yes, it's localized in all major languages (even Italian...).

And no, it's far from easy to find the English version if you are in one of the Asmodee's countries. My local shop was unable to order the game in English (only localized, that I would never play) and I had to look for it online; but if you want it in Italian and you did not pre-order, good luck, as most shops have it as sold out.

Not sure what happened (again!), but they seem to have underestimated the demand (again!). Something I cannot really understand, especially with a product that's meant to never cycle out, and therefore could have been kept in stock with minimal damage (other than the admittedly expensive stock cost).

Also, seems that most players bought directly 3x copies, even those that are "on the fence". So dear FFG, maybe next time think about printing a deluxe edition right away with 3x cards in it, at a small discount over 3 copies of the standard: less production cost, less packaging, higher profit.

4 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

Quick question, are you looking for a Spanish translated version? I wasn't even aware that they translated FFG games.

There's even Polish version, as since Warhammer: Invasion every LCG had translated version in Poland.

All I can really comment on is that there is absolutely no shortage in South England. People are buying boxes all over and there is plenty to go around.

Which is nice, cause my only experience of Asmodee so far comes from the perspective of an Ashes player. Such as there is such a thing, cause an otherwise really good game was brought up and was left out in the sun for absolutely ages and the only 'scene' as such is a casual in Dark Sphere in London that attracts about a dozen players and only really exists because of the personal costs swallowed by one very passionate player. Really sad to see actually.