Collectors Guides and the GW website

A while ago I bought and read the Tyranids Collectors guide, and mentioned it was next to impossible to buy the collectors/classic items in the guide (which is meant to be a catalogue for such items) from the GW website. Tonight, ordering some of the direct sales only items, I had another go. And then out of interest I tried the non-UK sites.

Three experiments as search terms:
- "patriarch" - you should get, according to the collectors guide, two genestealer models, the enthroned patriarch (99110106053) and the classic genestealer patriarch (99060106054)
- "hybrid" - you should get 2 models, hybrid 1 (994701060512) and hybrid 2 (9947010604511) (sad to say, there were originally 14 of these, at least).
- "magus" - 2 models, the advisor (9947010604507) - which is also part of the enthroned patriarch set - and the magus with staff (9947010604513)

The advisor, the enthroned patriarch, the classic patriarch and the magus with staff (as "magus with staff 2") are all visible here, as well as the magus with laspistol who will shortly be making a guest appearance. By the way, Familiar 1, from that page, is also still available according to the collectors' guide.

You'll get some other models as well (e.g. Balthasar Gelt, although even this is country dependent), but narrowing down the search is problematic as you seem to have to type in straight SQL. Also, if a search returns no results, it tells you it returned one result (the null result). All models should also be accessible from the tyranids collectors page, I would think, but that is obviously hoping for two much - by and large none of these models are available from those pages.

Anyhow, les resultats:

- GW USA - both hybrid models. Magus with staff but no advisor. A magus with laspistol also turns up (72557-7). No enthroned patriarch but the classic patriarch (under the code 72596-7) with associated arms as separate bits.
- GW UK - No hybrids. Arms but no body for classic patriarch. No enthroned patriarch. Magus with laspistol only. This is the market for which the collectors guide should be valid.
- GW Canada - No hybrids (Inquistor conversion parts only), no patriarch, no magus. Images on any search are broken (whoever wrote it mixed up the item addresses and the image addresses)
- GW France: 2 hybrids (type in "hybride"). No patriarch. Only one of the genestealer magi (type in "magos") - the staff. Tyranid homepage in store gets mangled in Safari.
- GW Australia - none of the models. I get the impression that Australia gets a subset - there are no classic/collectors pages. Same broken search issue as Canada.
- GW Italy - both magi and both hybrids. No patriarch. I notice the site is selling the English edition of the Tyranid collectors guide.
- GW Spain - Both hybrids. Both magi, plus the one with the laspistol, but the advisor is sold under the name of 'patriarca'. No patriarch.

And there you have it. Two conclusions:
- The collectors guide series either reflects a state that is going to come to pass in the future (or which existed at some point in the near past, but this guide has only been out a few weeks), or is just plain untrue
- GW seem to have multiple web storefronts, none of which work, sometimes to a frankly embarassing extent. And the UK is one of the worst.

[ update ... I was just about to put the collectors' guide back on the shelf, when I noticed a picture of one of the hybrids (note - the hybrids) on the inside front cover. Next to it, it says "Collectors' Models (like the Genestealer Advisor, pictured right) ..." Maybe the reason that they can't get the right items on the web store is that they don't actually recognise them. ]