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Sigh, so we’re going to do this*? I find this annual whinge deeply frustrating for two reasons. 1. I’ve been around this hobby since RT and 1990. It was always better back in the day. 3.5e was dreadful until it wasn’t, the Black Crusade a waste of time until it’s held up as a global example, WD was better when it carried World of Darkness articles. And the insidious culture on the internet that demands instant opinions that must always be right is just exhausting. 2. GW is a Great British Industrial Success Story. We should be celebrating them and expecting the rest of our industry to be like them. I admire the innate small c conservatism that sees them put 3 months of cash away for a rainy day of no sales. The fact they invest in capital upgrades without becoming highly leveraged. That they’re not based in London, and pay relatively well. That they seem to have a pretty flat structure. They know what their USP is, how to hold onto it and sustain it, whilst meeting all their other cultural aims. I say this genuinely, I’d love to work for a company like GW. *yes, Hamilton, sue me.

1st Update: it came out maybe hours ago, I (and apparently Brother Waaagh)'ve been reading it since: https://assets.ctfassets.net/ost7hseic9hc/6nI9MLA7hoRBfs2OA1oE5R/5b0fef99d81995ba1cdf872887f6cbe6/Results_Statement_2025-26_FINAL_v2.pdf How time flies. We've broken down GW's financials for a decade now, when GW hockey-sticked up around 8th ed 40k's launch. As always, we enter with a mindset of "you oughta know where your food comes from" as a U.S. Midwestern farmer once told me. Keep in mind this report measures from the time of Horus Heresy 3.0 to JUST BEFORE 40k 11th ed. I haven't even played 11th ed yet. PREVIEW: we are using their last Half-Yearly Report as an indicator, I will ADD NEW POSTS once the Full-Year report comes out. +++ Preview: TOP-LINE RESULTS +++ You always hear about "the bottom line", meaning (operating) profit, because corporations "maximise profit," "line must go up," etc. While it's true the spice must flow because the economy is built on having some forward motion, "top-line", or revenue, is more interesting to us as a proxy to the popularity of The Hobby. It's a measure of people x how much they're willing to spend...because they have spent it, the ultimate test. We can preview the Full-Year results from the Half-Year results: Core revenue means GW's own stuff: miniatures, games, paints, etc. Licensing revenue means royalties from video games and JoyToys, etc., NOT GW's own stuff FORECAST: GW's Full Year revenue should be around £700 million, a bit more than 2x GW's Half Year, because there's always a Christmas bump. To compare, Magic: the Gathering annual revenue is $1.72 BILLION, almost double GW. WotC prints money, and props up all of its parent, Hasbro. Fun Fact: unless you get a Space Marine II or something, licensing revenue is consistently around 5% of GW's core revenue. It's like if The Hobby itself is in good shape, video game companies will license 40k. Here, the horse is leading the cart: if GW wants to grow its licensing revenue, they should focus on popularising its OWN offerings (by making better miniatures, games, stories, etc.), then the licensees will come. This year was a Horus Heresy launch year, so was HH 3.0 the "hero" that drove core revenue growth? Turns out it was something different... +++ Preview: Where Was the Growth, Pricing Update Red Flag +++ The following is from the Half-Year report, and it'll be interesting to see how much it'll change by Full-Year, will update: Trade means 3rd party sellers like Friendly Local Gaming Stores or non-GW online stores Retail means Warhammer Stores Online means GW's own online store So if it was a product (or general growth) that drove sales, you'd see the same growth across sales channels, because it's the same product everywhere. So if HH 3.0 was really that popular, you'd see it drive sales in Trade (like FLGSs), Retail (Warhammer Stores) and Online (warhammer.com) all around the same level. Instead, we saw Trade grow by +25% while only around 5% (basically just inflation) elsewhere. I expect an explanation from the Half-Year report: Welp, thank you for the explanation, Miss Group Financial Director! GW increased 3rd party Trade vendors BY 500 to 8,600 (thx Rusted Boltgun for correcting me), but now I wonder how does that about 6% increase translate to 25.2%? Like I guess existing trade outlets might be buying much more, but that seems off, doesn't it? I guess THIS is a factor of Warhammer's popularity from other sources, like Space Marine II or Amazon shows. Here it's a bit of the cart leading the horse. For those that said video games/streaming will drive The Hobby, it turns out the main thing they drove is 3rd parties to carry more Warhammer products. The thing we're watching for is the core gross margin. GW expects a core gross margin of 70%: you buy $100 of stuff, it cost GW $30 to make, $70 is profit. That's only for that box of miniatures, paints, etc., and would not include the costs of running the Warhammer Store you bought it from, etc. (and what that $70 pays for). Fun Fact: there's a Director in GW whose job is to keep the core gross margin at 70%...thus keeping prices low. That job sucks right now, because geopolitical events have driven costs up, from the the plastic that is an oil-related byproduct to the energy costs of melting said plastic into molds to form miniatures. Last year, I mentioned tariffs from the U.S. would be passed onto Hobbyists worldwide, as tariffs are paid when a product enters a country, before it's sold to the consumer. That decrease of -1.8% suggests the US market is about 18% of GW's business. (Bolt)gun to my head, I'd've estimated 20% before, as I knew North America was about about 40% overall, like US would be half of all NA. Turns out it's a little bit lower than that, which was interesting to me. The last pricing update came in October 2025, before the Half-Year report. How the core gross margin drops will be a red flag on how big a price hike to come. +++ Preview: Factory 4 and Why Change Drop Pods/Baneblade +++ The most confusing thing to me as of late is, why change the Drop Pod and, recently, the Baneblade. The Baneblade could be some shady profit motive, but why bother? It's not something everyone buys and what they did is take out certain weapon options to sell separately, so GW won't make much from that. The Drop Pod was the really confusing one and was a red flag...it's like they're just looking for ways to make them faster. A new cast for something like the Drop Pod isn't costless, it should be within £100,000, so it's like a hard-thought/fought decision. I think it's how GW production has trouble keeping up with demand. GW has kept its same 3 Factories...with improvements...but is producing 5x more product. The most precious resource in GW right now is time on the factory floor. GW hasn't really addressed it yet, and likely they'll spin it as increased efficiency, but I wanna know. +++ Preview: We Await the Full-Year Report +++ It should come with this week, maybe next week at the latest, because GW has increasingly more money to count. The main interesting thing is how licensed games like Space Marine II drove sales mainly by making 3rd party partners interested, and I expect that Half-Year's Trade's (i.e. FLGS) 25% growth to grow even more by the Full-Year. It's about growing The Hobby from the OUTside, not just upselling to existing players/painters. The bad thing is I expect GW's costs to have ballooned, just all of ours have, and they'll have to increase their own prices to keep up. So I'll be back in this thread, updating this post, reading your replies, later this week or early next...should be.

I'd pay good money to not have Desolator weapon options in the box.

Final Analysis I thought I knew the answer, but had asked around to double-check. Executive Summary: I'm convinced what we're seeing is evidence of the video game Space Marine II's popularity translating to the tabletop The U.S. tariffs has changed not only GW pricing, but their products themselves, both recently and going into the future I will conclude with my thoughts about GW's arc over the last few decades, because I believe the next decade will be different. The Other Side of the Coin Thanks for reminding me, because this exercise made me see how mainstream media saw GW, and the gap in their understanding: I don't like platitudes like "corporations maximise profit" BECAUSE it ends a dialogue before the important bit: follow the money. I've been seeing how mainstream media has been covering GW, now a FTSE 100 or top tier British company, record high revenue but flat profits. However, those same outlets JUST LAST YEAR were talking about record profits correctly because of Space Marine II, which brought in unprecedented royalties for 6 to 7 million COPIES. These mainstream media outlets forgot there was no Space Marine III this year. GW actually wrote a reminder in LAST year's report: So mainstream media is saying record high revenue but flat profits...because there was no repeat of Space Marine II. The other side of that same coin is even without Space Marine II, GW maintained that record level of revenue and profit. (I'm not saying mainstream media is lying or evil. I AM saying they don't try to understand, to push news out faster.) Now, unless you're a GW shareholder, you don't really care about that. What I care about is The Hobby. Let's follow the money: Yes, Trade is Friendly Local Gaming Stores, Retail is Warhammer Stores, Online is warhammer.com, licensing is like video games. So FLGSs grew so much it dwarfed the vacuum left from having no Space Marine III. How big was it? £63.1 million. Is £63.1 million a lot? Well, remember back to 8th ed's release. That was the beginning of the Primaris. Everyone was buying new Space Marines armies, but what's more, Warhammer friends I had not seen for 10 years were coming back to The Hobby. It was the biggest growth in GW's history at that point. How does it compare? The year of the Primaris, across FLGSs, new Warhammer Stores, warhammer.com, etc., grew £61.8 million, LESS than this year's FLGS's growth alone. Sure, everything else this year was flat, but it's like you take the coin of the record year of licensing revenue from Space Marine II, flip it to the other side, into FLGS revenue, with more lustre. Following the money, finding where it came from, it leads to the next obvious question, how? How did FLGSs grow so much? A Phone Call From a Dead Man Perhaps you've seen this horror story. You get a phone call/message in the morning, a friend WhatsApp'd you to avoid the shortcut to work because of a traffic accident. So you take the long route, when you arrive safely, your co-workers tell you a fatal accident JUST happened...but also that friend that warned you had died LAST NIGHT. That plot twist was what I felt when I had read this from the Half-Yearly Report (and this was what I confirmed this week): The way the Half-Yearly Report sounded was the telesales team of the Trade/FLGS channel had some awesome update, like a new telemarketing script, new leads to cold call, maybe a charismatic coach flying around the world teaching GW's Trade reps how to sell better. Instead, they mentioned Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur. I'm IN Hong Kong. I KNOW the Hong Kong Trade rep, and how valuable he is. He used Contrast paints to get Hong Kong model kit shops that sell Gundam to carry some Easy-To-Builds like, "Sell Ultramarine Contrast for this mini I painted for your own demos...then your own Gundam markers for the yellow trim." See the salesmanship he had? He had this spiel how Warhammer is complementary to Gundam, not competitive. He'd likely sell Contrast for Gundam Assemble, but... ...here's the plot twist. This Hong Kong Trade rep and his Malaysian colleague in Kuala Lumpur were let go from GW. It was not their fault, no problem or performance issue, it was just a regional re-organisation, and their jobs were folded into the Singaporean office. A guy in Singapore isn't flying over here to demo Contrast paint. When I read this, it was like receiving a telemarketing phone call from a dead man. Telesales service would've gone DOWN, NOT up. (I do not think the report lied. I DO think it's a "we thank our EX-colleagues for their contributions, growing our sales 25.2% this year as they embark on the next exciting chapter of their careers OUTSIDE our company." In my professional life, I've had co-workers not realising they were on such an adventure until they were told so by email.) Like I said, I know the value of at least the Hong Kong Trade rep, which I assume is shared across GW global...but it's NOT the driver here. A More Reasonable Explanation A more reasonable explanation than a phone call from a dead man is Space Marine II players showing up at FLGSs. Just imagine being an Asian model shop owner OR a U.S. baseball card shop that also sells Magic: the Gathering. Space Marine II players that finished the single-player campaign started showing up asking for Warhammer and you're like, "Sorry, but we only have Gundam/M:tG Commander Decks, and they have a 40k version!" These are customers with ready money and you're sending them OUT of your own store, empty-handed...for months. However, the NEXT time a GW Trade rep calls, you'd be like, "Hey! I've been meaning to talk to you..." I did Enterprise Sales, and I would ask the Retail Team to take my dumb ass to "walk their beat." Like they'd tour their partners' shops in malls and high streets and I'd beg them to take me with. I learned retail is both very risk averse yet always chasing the latest fad in this desperate attempt to stay relevant in an online world. Retailers want The Next Big Thing, yet also want confirmation it WILL be a Big Thing, so there's no Next, only Now. And the flaw with this roleplay exercise is it was a small increase in new Trade partners, so probably existing ones just bought more. So I do think it's a general mainstreaming of Warhammer, yes from Space Marine II, but also that 1 episode from the Amazon anthology series. That trend is the salesmanship that convinces retailers. The case is not closed. For example, Sell-In into a retailer's shop is NOT Sell-Through to the end user. We'll see next year. Last year, I tried to quantify how much Space Marine II expanded The Hobby. Turns out it just took time, not mathemagic. Tariffs Are the Biggest Nerf GW Faced This section is shorter yet MUCH MORE significant, because I can illustrate my point well here. Consider recently: New Drop Pod that NO ONE asked for Repackaged Baneblade that our astute Brothers and Sisters caught They ruined Agrax Earthshade, I can tell you that 1st hand, I'm still miffed A smaller...cheaper...edition of Necromunda than expected As Brother Moriya rightly said below, Kill Team(s) Keep an eye out on similar changes in the future Before going further, I thank Brother Alfred not just for what he said, but the way he said it, as a reminder to us all: He's talking about the OFFICE, not the person, nor the politics. We at B&C steer clear of politics...even as politics drive AT us. Yes, I asked Copilot AI to create the following illustration, I'm a heretech, bad Techpriest, but to make my point: These are ACTUAL figures from the Half-Yearly Report, laid out to resemble a Balance Updates' Munitorum Field Manual. As Warhammer players, you should have a visceral reaction, so that you understand how GW is reacting, even if you think they're making a mistake. US tariffs are the biggest points increase GW has ever faced. As a manufacturer, GW cares (imho more than they probably should) about the "core" (i.e. their own products, not video games by 3rd parties) gross margin, like what it costs to make a miniature. GW looks at these costs like we do at the points of units in our armies. Point increases suck, but we eat them, to keep things legal. So does GW. Reminder that you've probably heard tariffs described by cable news pundits as a sales tax. Technically, that's mistaken. Tariffs are charged on goods passing "over the (guard) rails" of a ship onto just a US dock, way before a customer even sees it in a shop. That timing makes it a cost on the product itself, like an extra shipping cost. Traditionally, you see increase in costs in fractions of a percent, like 0.1%, 0.2%, etc. The tariff is 10% that affects GW's US market, which turns out to be 18%, for a 1.8% tariff. It's like a key unit in your army go up HUNDREDS OF POINTS. You gotta keep that model, so you're scrounging up any points you can from the rest of your list. Such a nerf means any upgrade for your HQs, you're taking off. The max-sized unit he's buffing, because you want the most value, you're reducing by a few models. In fact, you're cutting ALL units you have to make up the difference, everything is scaled down...and you know you're losing more efficiencies than points you're saving. Tariff is not just about profit. It's like a pound of flesh payment where you calculate how many fingers you can cut off to still call your hand a hand. (I say that because a streamer in a game I play has a disability where he only plays with 1 hand, yet he just reached a 10,000 subscriber milestone. Winner.) That's what's happening with GW and their products right now. They're forced into these unhelpful cuts, like cutting out sprues or plastic where the Drop Pod still resembles a Drop Pod, a new edition of Necromunda without the famous multi-story terrain, and Agrax Earthshade is...brown water. My secret sauce turned into sewage. That tariff WAS overturned, but GW believes is its sudden yet inevitable return; they mentioned they do NOT consider it to be an "exceptional" i.e. one-off. That belief is reasonable because the US is not out to tariff the UK per se, it's worldwide, to prevent countries it's targeting like China to "transship" through the UK, etc. I remain optimistic of the good news of no more pricing updates until another shock, like oil runs out needed for plastic and electricity to melt them, the bad news is it's because GW already charged us for the pricing updates while modifying their products...and I'm sure more shocks will happen sooner or later. In the meantime, I expect new products to be not exactly smaller, but more modular, like the new Necromunda is Necromunda: Skirmish. Lighter products so they don't put all the eggs in a single big basket that they have to pay tariffs on, things a bit more piecemeal so GW can send it over to the US in a more Made To Order format. Not Going To Talk About Factory Four Not going to talk about Factory Four, for a happy reason. I used to go off on this, and I'm no longer worried about it. It's been about a decade of growth, a 2nd Renaissance for GW, from after Age of Sigmar released its General Handbook that made the game viable and the introduction of Primaris to now. Before that, GW hovered at £120 million with 3 factories. A decade later, about FIVE times the revenue at £666.9 million...but with the SAME 3 factories. The real stat isn't how many factories there are, it's GW's property, plant and equipment, which includes all sorts of stuff such as plastic mould injection machines. You can tell from this table in my spreadsheet GW didn't really add to it until 2018, after 40k 8th ed's launch. Now they're at about FOUR times and adding more. I don't know exactly how they're stuffing all those machines into the same 3 factories, I imagine it looks like a MC Escher painting in there, but it's good! Conclusion: Prediction For the Next Decade I know a McKinsey consultant-turned conglomerate CEO who's a history PhD, "Don't give me a snapshot, I want to see the trend." Thus, I shall end with how I started, this graph, to show how I'm already seeing a trend in the next phase of GW: GW was founded in 1975, and when it had a "management buyout" and became a publicly listed company in 1992, we got access to its records where we can track its progress. It's like every decade since, GW goes into a new phase. I'm describing them after the fact, but it goes something like this: 1992-2004: Golden Age, because the 40k logo was literally gold. 2nd ed starter box set made 40k much more accessible than 1st ed, where it's like White Dwarf articles later collected into books. It peaked with a COMBINATION of the Lord of the Rings games bringing new customers as well as 40k's height with the Eye of Terror campaign. 2004-2016: Dozen Years of Decline, the peak lured GW into a false sense of success, they expanded too fast, leading to a LOSS year in 2007. Cost-cutting measures like one-man Warhammer Stores began. Sales/profits look flat like that's ok, but remember prices were going up; The Hobby was slowly bleeding out. 2017-2024: GW Renaissance, I use that term not because it's fancy, but because it's a literal rebirth where GW looked into its past to win back "lapsed" customers. It wasn't simply Warhammer Fantasy was reborn as Age of Sigmar, but the return of Blood Bowl, Necromunda, etc. The sheer drive to return to a Golden Age made it such. Oh, don't worry, what comes next is not an Age of Darkness, just Something Different, and I think it started LAST year with Space Marine II. Up until now, the successes AND failures of GW were largely INTERNAL. 2nd ed 40k, they knew 1st ed Rogue Trader was really hard to get into, invest in a starter box, make neat Codices around armies, try different things, keep what works. Even during bad times, GW cut its own costs, until its resurgence with more streamlined rules in 8th, etc. Now, the biggest factors that influence seem increasingly EXTERNAL. How well did Space Marine II do? Space Marine I was good, but did not have as large an impact. It's not Warhammer+ but an Amazon anthology series that seem to reach a mass audience. It's not Horus Heresy novels, but LoreTubers talking about them that people hear. Before it was Rick Priestley and Rest In Power, John Blanche that lead to Warhammer's rise, going forward it'll be a celebrity like Henry Cavill and YouTubers like Asmongold who just bought a Nurgle army that determine Warhammer's future, maybe. Like the Master of Mankind, I can see the island, I just don't know how we get there. Don't react too badly to this change, because I know how much we hate change. The only thing we hate more than change is the way things are. And of course, please, continue the discussion. Even I'm not so sure on all this, I'm just seeing the trend. But you guys see what I see, right?

Hello all, longtime "guest-browser" and I've finally gotten around to getting myself settled here at B&C. My intentions with this thread is to document the works in progress and workshopping lore snippets. Finished pieces; both any writings and completed miniatures will end up on my blog. Now, my hobby-process is glacial, so this will be a slow moving journey. Although perhaps that is perfectly thematic for the shambling forces of Grandfather Nurgle. I don't particularly play the game on the tabletop, so this is just going to be a lot of hobby. I'll drop some photos below, hopefully these photos come out clear - I had to do some rescaling to fit in the 1.95mb file size limit. Always happy to chat hobby, C&C welcome. Enjoy. Plague Champion, clad in MKII Crusade Plate corrupted by centuries of warp exposure. Plague Marine, also clad in warped Crusade Armour. I really love the old forgeworld upgrade parts, a real shame they're out of production. The Severed heads are taken from the even older forgeworld Terminator upgrade kit for 40k. Of the three I have to kick this thread off, this marine is the least complete of the bunch. The third edition chaos codex was a huge inspiration, as you can probably tell by the snarling vox-grille and curving horns. The helmet itself is from the old forgeworld Khorne Berserker upgrade, though I replaced the "bunny ears" with some horns from the old blightking kit.

I expected GW's Full-Year Financial Report to come out later this week, they released it the NEXT day. Gimme a break, GW. +++ 1st Impressions: TOP-LINE RESULTS +++ Core revenue means GW's own stuff: miniatures, games, paints, etc. Licensing revenue means royalties from video games...like SPACE MARINE II (I colour-coded it to be like a Balance Dataslate, because it's actually really efficient.) BOTH of the following are true. 1st, it IS another GW peak. 2nd, it is ALSO a slight plateauing off from an exceptional year. Last year was the release of the video game Space Marine II. Give you a comparison. Street Fighter 6 sold 7 million copies. It's about to take centre-stage in the Esports World Cup tomorrow. A film with DC/WWE/podcast stars is coming. Space Marine II sold almost double that, now at 12 million units. Space Marine II didn't just bring licensing revenue (which is awesome because it's like Mortal Wounds; there's no costs like there's no cover saves, it goes through as sheer profit like sheer damage), but it unlocked a new wave of 1st time Hobbyists; they've heard of 40k, but now want to act on it. It really wasn't going to repeat until maybe a Space Marine III. I hope but am unsure it can repeat even with Total War:hammer 40k tbh. +++ 1st Impressions: Growth In the Same Place, Just Less So +++ In my initial post, I mentioned 30k wasn't as much as hero as FLGSs/3rd parties, known as "Trade", at +25.2%. That Trade channel dropped to 17.2% stretched out the whole year. The other "Channels" (GW's own) also fell. Question for you guys pls: what happened in the 2nd half of the year? Starting December to May. Did we all wait for 11th ed? +++ 1st Impressions: Pricing Update Red Flag Lowered...for NOW +++ Good news is there probably won't be another pricing update this year. Bad news is it's 'cos they ALREADY overcharged/over-cut corners. TL;DR is - GW operated as if the U.S. tariffs were real and adjusted their business to fit. Even though they got overturned, they think they'll be back. GW hovers at a core gross margin of 70%: $100's worth of minis/paints/books in a haul averages out to costing GW $30 to make. They fight hard for each FRACTION of a percent, have like 10 annual projects that shave off like 0.1% each...which gets cancelled out by like a 1% increase in Covid-related costs. U.S. tariffs are 10% for U.K. goods. We found they're about 18% of GW's sales. That's the 1.8% in the initial post, from their Half-Year results in JANUARY 2026. Because tariffs are charged "over the rails" (actually a technical term, like the ship's railing so you don't fall over). For a company that is sweating every 0.1% here, 0.1% there, overnight they hard to deal with a 1.8% change. GW was already planning things like its pricing updates, shown here as the 0.2% "price rises", that took effect in October 2025. This whopping change to cost of good sold is an unprecedented 1.6%. Cost of goods sold can EXACTLY be a downgraded Drop Pod and Baneblade with missing parts. I've only seen it at like 0.1% efficiency increases before. (Technically tariffs go into a cost of goods sold figure, but people can separate it out for clarity, they're not fudging numbers. It's not like Power Levels.) The U.S. Supreme Court "struck down" those U.S. tariffs in FEBRUARY 2026, but it's like GW was already planning around them. Had the U.S. Supreme Court NOT "struck down" those U.S. tariffs, that'd be 71.1% - 1.8% = 69.3%, a little bit lower than what they were last year. I lay this out before you hear some YouTuber say this is GW "greedflation". "Greedflation" WOULD be if GW dramatically increased prices over their costs. But they show they were technically targeting that 10% the U.S. government charge 18% of our Fraters, that the rest of us are fronting money to help. Warhammer example - the tariffs are like when a Balance Dataslate just screwed your army over by making your best unit go overpoints, so you try to cut almost EXACTLY the points from somewhere else so you can still play with a legal list, but it never quite equates...and you're waiting for the NEXT nerf. (And that's how I ended up with a Royal Warden as my HQ for my Triple C'tan list.) Btw, it's not like GW even has all the money back yet. There's a mechanism where you have to "sue" a specific U.S. department to stake your claim. Oh and if GW does another pricing update in lieu of this, and it's not, say, due to rising energy/oil-related byproducts like plastic, I WILL call greedflation. Now I go to bed! A bit angry!

Yeah no my guy, it looks so much like someone just had AI enhance the blurry pic. Of course it's tripping balls over the intricate detail. You really think GW's gonna release a helmet with a random blob on the forehead like this? Or leather straps merging into each other with studs melting off? And the more you look at it the more you see random shapes that go nowhere or deformed details.

I will be very sad if the old Castraferrum goes extinct; as far as I'm concerned it is the 40K model.

Pre-orders next week. That means if you're a youtuber you've got a week left to get ready to tell us why your favourite game you never played, painted nor talked about before has been ruined forever.

Did somebody call?! :D

"The END of NECROMUNDA!!" or "GW just ENDED Necromunda FOREVER!" or, the more speculative "Did GW just RUIN Necromunda??" followed by "Is Necromunda BACK??"

Glad you like them! These rotten sods aren't quite ready for painting just yet, a lot of that you can see is liquid greenstuff & texture paints. I'll attach a pic of a painted member of the Warband for you to feast your eyes upon. This is my Chaos Lord Dis - and whilst not the Astartes in overall command, he's up there! Thankyou! I'm glad you like it. Just shot you a quick follow on Instagram too as I saw it linked in your profile

One last green reveal (probably).

Are YOU going to tell him he can't?

Well, just 10 years after the kit was released, I have finished the Exalted Sorcerer kit. Nice and speedy, I think we can all agree!

Another record year? But... the youtubers told me they were on the brink of total collapse! Next quarter for sure.

More Dark Angels to report! This is a 10 man strong Tactical Squad. I’ve continued with the black and green scheme. I’ve added a lot of extra bitz to them to give them the Dark Angels aesthetic. Horus Heresy Dark Angels Horus Heresy Dark Angels Horus Heresy Dark Angels Horus Heresy Dark Angels Next up will be some heavily converted Cataphractii Terminators!

Better pics

The idea that we lost a load of data in some sort of big crash is so completely appropriate for the setting. Way to really live the hobby, Admins! ;)

Specifically HH9 Mechanicum by Graham Mcneill This is one of those books i come back to every now and then. It is for me one of the best HH books (gasps, shrieks of rage!) in the entire series. And i will tell you why. It is one of the few HH books to REMEMBER that the HH is suppose to be a tragedy. That 30k is not suppose to be 40k with 5% less skulls. Mechanicum sets out a Red Planet that is both instantly warhammer (tech priests, skitarii, hover skulls, titans, etc etc), but also clearly NOT 40K. We keep seeing people use NEW TECH, discuss new discoveries and recoveries from the expeditionary fleets, and characters laying out their plans to MAKE THINGS BETTER. But it doesnt throw out the 40k baby with the bathwater. Our main character was going to be executed for improving tech, the Mechanicum still has laws and social taboos about outright inventing. What the book does is show a version of Mars/Mechanicum/Imperium that is smart enough to realise that going full zealout is counter productive, but FULLY knows that just letting people tinker with tech in warhammer is a very very very bad idea. So you get a delightfully and super realistic setting where rules exists, but there are clear ways to work around them with everyone of note fully understanding whats going on. But back to what makes it one of the better heresy books, this is a book that shows what the heresy COST humanity, in way of knowledge, culture and a stolen future. A book that shows that the Emperors Imperium while being a bad bad murder empire WAS ALSO leading humanity down a path to a better future. DId the path need that many dead bodies, xenocides and opression? Who knows but it sure beats old night and what came before. And the average tech priest KNOWS THIS. Its one of the very very very few heresy books that has characters smart enough to call out the traitors for their hypocrisy. Oh Horus is fit to lead humanity down a better path because.....he lead his fathers armies, his fathers fleets, used the galactic level logistical network set up by his uncle while leading legions of supermen in the best tech available which his father created, set up and gave him...for a few decades once all the hard work was done...truly he is better then his father....truly Oh wait the Emperor is a super evil tyrant cause he wont let us into the Vaults of Morevec...which were already forbidden before he united terra and mars? Cause he wont let us do AI research....which is one of the Mechanicums founding beliefs? Cause he wont let us make new tech while we pump out new things every day and the crusade begs for more? And while the book doesnt really focus on it, it shows how WEAK Kelbor Halls position and argument that war and rebellion is the better move truky is, by having him not rally supporters, not adress the martian synod and lay out his case, not use his position as head of the Mechanicum to lead it into justified rebellion. But by plotting a pre emptive strike on his own people in a effort to kill enough that resistance to his coup will be non viable.... by dealing in secret and in the dark one whisper at a time. By staging a false flag attack and then hunting down the confused survivors. Mechanicum shows a Martian Mechanicum at the height of its power, knowledge and influence looking towards a horizon that is ever brighter and then rug pulls it out from under us, because in the grim darkness of the far future there can be only war. Now this is not going to win any writing awards, and allot of what i say is only in the backround of the book. But it IS THERE. The world building is there. The characters are there. Mars FEELS big , it FEELS alive, it FEELS like the beating heart of a Empire. And while i would never vote for it to be book of the year, i would VOTE for it to be in the top 10 HH books.

Today, I got hit by a dude on a e-bike who was speeding down the sidewalk. I'm not hurt bad but I tweaked my wrist. Putting models together is going to be off the table for a week or two.

It's simply funny that the dramamongers insisting up and down that doom is coming, that every single new release, new rulebook and decision is bad, you should stop playing or else you're a shill for enjoying it, and they will pay for it - only to be proven wrong yet again. Though to be fair, at least they actually get money out of the clickbait. The weirder individuals are those who apparently despise literally everything about modern GW from business decisions to the art to the lore, but nonetheless can't fathom supporting any other game, IP or company but instead weirdly lavish GW with far more effort and attention than even the most diehard white knights. Ironically, in doing so they're doing more than anybody to sell the idea that GW is the 'only game in town'. Then again, considering how quickly the same dramamongers went for Trench Crusade the nano-second they smelt a bit of blood in the water to get clicks from, maybe it's better those alternative games remain somewhat on the down-low.

He's bigger, greener and richer than you. He's also in Total War.

When the Exalted Sorcerer kit was first released, I bought it straight away. And I instantly painted one, then, Just ten years later, I have finally got round to painting another! This time, the chap on the disc. This is a great little kit, would be great to see them, and the entire Thousand Sons range, get the update treatment most marines have had in scale. Still a cracking kit though.

I feel like people keep reacting to GW price increases like this isn't an issue present in nearly every category of market at the moment due to one very large market making selling anything to them prohibitively expensive for no reason.

Somebody on reddit did a pretty good mockup how the new version would look like:

First post in here, in about, maybe 10 years? More? Anyway: Desann Baraduk, here for that high-seas booty. Is he perfect? No. Is he the best model I've ever painted? Also no Yes. I've since fixed the base - didn't see that little blemish there. It was...painfully eradicated.

First vow finished. Gotta decide what comes next, but I do want to do a second vow for my Tyranids.

I've just managed to finish my June's batch of Marines. 1. I hoped that I'll merge the two sets of photos into one showing a five-man squad but i failed at that. Unfortunately, I've already cleaned up my photo setup and couldn't be bothered to retake the photos. Apologies for this. 2. As an author’s comment, please note that these models are supposed to be my take on 'speed painting.' The irony of spending almost 2 months on painting 5 Marines is not lost on me (more on that later). I think that I've also 'failed' to significantly quicken the painting process time-wise BUT there's definitely good stuff going on here. - I think I successfully managed to reduce the need for edge highlighting and time spent on doing that. At the same time, the armour doesn't look flat - I hope you'll agree - and the details are satisfactorily emphasised. - The whole process was quite rewarding and quick. What bogged me down was painting the backpacks and heads separately - I got overly focused on the backpacks. The lesson here is this: I should glue the backpacks on at an earlier stage to avoid wasting time on them in the future. - Trying new stuff out is always fun. While pivoting has never been my forte, I think that the last 2 squads made me rethink my approach to painting Marines. I think I'll lean even heavier into using sponges and using highlights for a more pinpointed 'dramatic' effect, rather than the usual faux-Eavy-Metal style consisting in hitting every possible edge. 3. I've been away from the forum and hobby longer than I anticipated. I will post another update on the state of the project, hopefully, soon.

Vow complete

Hahaha is that sarcasm ? Or you really not sure? Quick breakdown at least for me what happened after chrismas, in case you seriously don’t know. I live in rural Quebec, roughly an hour from eveything. I would say I drive between 500 to 1000 KM a week. Gas went from 1.30 per liter march 1rst to 1.90 + 2 weeks later and stayed there for months in my area, so well over a 40% increase. The lowest it got since then was 1.70 before it started trending back up 2 weeks ago (currently at 1.80 for me now). Diesel, which the majority of transport vehicles use, also went up, which then drove up other volatile trade goods like food rather quickly as well. So not only did my full tank of gas go from 60 ish to almost $90, all the other basics started pushing up too. For people with limited incomes, this really bites into your hobby and entertainment budget, so someone like myself who put aside say 400 a month, but gases up 2 times a week (living an hour away from everywhere sucks) would need an extra 240 a month just for the gas increase alone, and then some additional money towards rapidly increasing food costs as well. Keep in mind that’s not 400 for GW, but what’s budgeted for “entertainment” so that covers streaming tv and game services, restaurant and take out food, toys, games, and trips for kids etc etc. Taking the extra gas costs cuts that to 160, then down to a $100 as food rises to match. Once netflix, disney, and the game pass comes off, We’re down to maybe $40 to spend on fun stuff for everybody for the month. I can tell you it feels both insane and soul crushing to see how rapidly one can go from all the bases are covered with enough left to have some fun to scrounging up spare change from around the house to pay for necessities because you ran out of bread and milk 2 days before money comes in. Now I normally don’t feel poor. But the price jumps are definitely becoming enough to hit not just those who were already broke, but those who were at the “well I still have money left after i pay all the bills to have some fun every month“ just don’t have it anymore, we aren’t able to buy anything. Now many warhammer folk do tend to be on the wealthier side, but not all of them are wealthy enough to keep buying at the rate they were before with the recent increases in price in the “you need it to live” items over the past 5 months

I do think it's funny that Fenris is getting invaded again I imagine the High Lords at this point are saying: "We have reports that Fenris is fighting off an invasion by Chaos forces." "Oh so it must be Tuesday" "Bjorn is reportedly saving the day" "Tuesday evening then, I'll set my chrono"

It's the other bits like zero debt that show the health!

I thought there was quite a bit of info for a first article. Courtesy of James from Necromunda Underhive from Discord. NECROMUNDA: WHAT ACTUALLY CHANGED JULY 2026 1. GANG BUILDING AND FIGHTER ROLES • Every Ganger picks a specialisation and gets a free skill. There are eight specialisations. Gunner, Scout and Medic are the three GW has named so far. • A Ganger becomes a Champion at 37 XP. They resolve an Advancement, replace the Ganger subtype with Champion, and otherwise stay the same fighter. An Escher Gang Sister stays a Gang Sister; she does not turn into a Matriarch or Death-maiden. • Fighters can have several subtypes at once. A Gang Sister can be both a Ganger and a Specialist. Other subtypes include Mounted, Pet, Flying and Beast, each with its own shared rules. • Every Leader and Champion gets Inspiring. Friendly models in line of sight can use a Leader's Cool for Nerve checks within 12 inches, or a Champion's within 6 inches. • Brutes and Hangers-on are no longer limited by Reputation. Together, they can make up no more than half of the roster. They also do not get Post-cycle Actions. • Every Brute gets Juggernaut. Hangers-on can be left out of random starting crews and Reinforcement decks. If a Brute or Hanger-on leaves the roster, their weapons and wargear disappear instead of going into the Stash. • Weapon restrictions are much looser. Leaders, Champions, Gangers and Prospects can generally use anything available to the gang or bought from the Trading Post. Specific exceptions still apply. The rule does not include Juves, Crew, Brutes or Hangers-on. • Beasts, Flying models and Loners now have standard rules. Beasts cannot Interact, Treat Ally or help with Recovery. Flying models can move between levels without climbing and pass over intervening terrain. Beast and Loner Leadership normally cannot be used for Bottle checks.NECROMUNDA: WHAT ACTUALLY CHANGED NECROMUNDA NEW EDITION RULES - JULY 2026 2. CAMPAIGNS AND POST-CYCLE ACTIONS • The current post-battle sequence is being split in two. Some steps happen after each battle and others at the end of the campaign cycle. The Post-cycle Sequence is Post-cycle Actions, Collect Income and Update Roster. • Every eligible model gets one Post-cycle Action. Models that are In Recovery or Critically Injured/Damaged cannot act. Brutes and Hangers-on do not get an action. • Train: gain 2 XP. • Work Territory: a Leader, Champion, Ganger or Prospect adds 15 credits to the Stash. No more than five fighters can do this in one cycle. • Visit Trading Post: a Leader or Champion lets the gang buy equipment. • Develop Tactics: a Leader or Champion adds a new Gang Tactic to the roster. • Medical Escort now costs 30 credits instead of 2D6 x 10. On a 1, the patient dies. On 2-3, they suffer a result from the 50s on the Lasting Injury table. On 4-6, they go into Recovery with no lasting injury. Every extra 50 credits adds +1 to the roll. • Fit Bionics removes a Lasting Injury for 50 credits. Each injury is paid for separately, and Critical Injury cannot be removed this way. The patient gives up their own Post-cycle Action and cannot also receive Medical Escort that cycle. • Vehicle repair is a flat 50 credits per result. Visit Chop Shop removes any chosen Lasting Damage result, including Critical Damage. The current percentage-based repair cost and Persistent Rattle result are gone from this action. 3. COMBAT • Melee is resolved in Initiative order. The active fighter no longer makes all of their attacks before every survivor makes full Reaction attacks. A fighter attacking outside their own activation gets one attack. • The Firepower die is no longer rolled for every ranged attack. It is only used by weapons that fire a lot of rounds or are especially prone to malfunction. GW has not said which weapons those are yet. • Once a gang bottles, you no longer make a Cool check for every fighter. Bottle tests use the best eligible Leadership on the table instead. GW has not shown the exact roll or modifiers. • Save is now a stat on the fighter profile. Armour, cover and other equipment modify it. • Cover improves Save. GW has not said whether partial and full cover still give the current -1 and -2 hit penalties.

From the Warhammer Academy :D

Build your own Exodite terrain! It’s like the good old days of 3rd edition! Break out your old cereal boxes and PVA glue and scissors everybody!

Good morning all! I've recently starting working on a Mordheim conversion to 40k, which I've called Mord Hive. This is predominantly for my posse of gamers as we wanted to rock a sci-fi campaign boys weekend but modern Necromunda feels way too much like elite, well equipped kill teams going at each other, and Kill Team is well, Kill Team. So I opted to rejigg Mord Hiem into having 40k correct factions, while still maintaining the desperate back-alley scrabble styled vibes. If you're interested in having a look at the rules, they are HERE. This folder won't change, so check back every week or so for updates (the next one is a huge update!). Anyway, the weekend is booked in, but months away, so I've started my (probably first of many) warbands, the Forsaken Astartes. The fluff behind the Forsaken Astartes warbands are essentially everyone had to get out of Mord HIve really quick, leaving many forces stranded amongst the ruined hive. The Forsaken Astartes warband is essentially a single marine left for dead and either his retainers petetioned to try and find him as the rest of imperial forces where fleeing, or he has co-opted some local artificers or machinists that were left behind. He starts the campaign with near-non functional Power Armour and very limited ammunition for his bolt gun. So Battle-Brother Sevrael Nassio of the Sons of Sanguinious was the first model I've started working on to try and set the scene for the rest of the warband (those being his chapter serfs, some servitors and random civilian hangers on/worshippers). Obviously wanted some serious chonk to him as he is the centrepiece of the warband, but also wanted him to look battered and a bit pack-mulish. Can see a nice ceremonial-esque dagger on him, I've got a handful of smaller ones that will be on each of his serfs/ Artificer. Big ole chainsword is from the recent Blood Angels upgrade sprue/ packed. His backpack is from that 'totally not a blood angel' necromunda merc. More gear from the necromunda merc, being the canteens and bolter sling. I've also chucked a Dark Eldar dagger in there as I imagine a marine, while nominally xenophobic, is this survival situation will use whatever he has vaialbe. Back to the front. The Bolter is a custom design I made up, essentially a significantly more detailed variant of a phobos with a pull out wire stock. Most of the Marine is a fummel finger sculpt which I then when in and damaged with some sculpting or some 'damage punches' to show the damage under the ablative plate. Finally wanted a non-3d printed head as I find so often that on 28mm the 3d print heads just don't ever seem detailed enough. Sculpted some long lucious locks on as I think the spot of blonde hair in the midst of what will be a pretty darkly painted model could be a good spot of colour! Anyway, if you see any major issues yell out! Also please have a look at Mord Hive, and sling any feedback you have on that (Feedback link in the document). Next up will be some pictures of Nassio's retainers!

I would conquer whole nations, build mighty armies and fight wars untold just to have this miniature.

But you could already take more than three since the krios came in squadrons. Same for space marines, armored breakthrough (and various legion variants) existed if you wanted to spam a bunch of different tanks. And back then you didn't even need to run a bunch of useless characters with them because all you needed to unlock it was a Command tank. Because it heavily incentivizes spam, forces you to remember well over a dozen different detachments instead of one FoC and makes you take a bunch of characters. These than have no in-game link they are supposedly leading and because this is classic warhammer they're all essentially overcosted beatsticks who likely have no place with the units they unlock. There are games where chain of command is a huge thing and this kind of force construction would be perfectly acceptable for those, but it is not for heresy.

The Cataphractii are complete! These have been heavily kitbashed using bitz from the old Deathwing set plus 3d printed stuff from Archie’s Forge. I had an absolute blast painting them, I feel they have the sinister Dark Angel vibe going. Here’s the pics: Dark Angels Cataphractii Dark Angels Cataphractii Dark Angels Cataphractii Dark Angels Cataphractii Dark Angels Cataphractii Thanks for looking!

If GW could maybe stop tempting me to attempt a collection of literally every Necromunda miniature because it's the most consistently quality range they've ever made, that'd be much appreciated.

Today was the free model of the month at the Warhammer store. I got a push together Ork and while waiting for someone, started playing with some green stuff.

I’m going to laugh so hard if this has genuinely gone oop before the tactical squad kit

Yes. I think a lot of people misunderstand that the Great Crusade Imperium, aspects like the Treaty of Olympus or the Edict of Nikea or the Imperium Truth or the Webway Project were transitional endeavours. They were stepping stones. And they weren't exciting stepping stones. I know I belabour this point constantly here and elsewhere, but the Webway Project wasn't some sexy fallout shelter or hideaway or mystic source of power. It was a reliable logistics hub. You can't run an empire without reliable communications and logistics. You can't enforce the Emperor's Imperial culture/identity with so much distance between worlds. Logistics and culture aren't sexy, but that's how the biggest empires stuck around for so long. McNeill is the one of the few writers who is at all concerned with culture. I wrote a big screed in the Necromancy thread about this in Outcast Dead where he shows in close detail the Imperium's painful transition. It's this teeming human soup. He shows how the Unification Wars are already rewritten, the rough edges sanded off, the necessary sacrifices papered over ('MEMBER ARIK TARANIS?). It is not pleasant. It is not nice for the soup. But we also see the great ideas, the orbital plates, the infrastructure in development, etc. And I don't think we see 'culture' any clearer than in Mechanicum. We see a whole bunch of competing personalities. You can see how the Emperor was grooming the next generation of the Mechanicum leadership, how he favoured people like Land or Zeth, how the Martian landscape would have been impossibly different in a bare hundred years or so. Mars rocks, and it rocks because you have a whole bunch of healthy competition, competing ideas and big personalities in it for the love of the game. This is, as Naga says, the crux and true betrayal of Kelbor Hal. It shows how hollow and weak he is as a person. He doesn't rebel because he has some righteous moral cause, he doesn't rally allies with his philosophies and beliefs. He doesn't have the courage for that - more exactly, he knows, in his heart, that he can't stand against the 'next generation'. They're more active, more vital, more progressive. One of the things that Cawl does best in his books is challenge people. He challenges everyone, all the time, and he constantly rises to challenges himself. He engineers the confrontation in Genefather to have that debate where he can lay out his beliefs to the reader- er, I mean, his erstwhile allies. He challenges allies and enemies to rise to his example - something even Bile appreciates, and something Bile fails to do. Cawl's speech about how friendship is goddamn magic is goddamn magic. And he's constantly rewarded for this in a setting that usually punishes belief and faith and good intentions. Cawl is an exemplar of what the 30K Mechanicum was becoming. Hell, he is a Mechanicum Magos out of time. That's what the Mechanicum was. It was being carefully nurtured, tactfully guided in a way that was shedding literally thousands of years of fanatical dogma in a few short centuries. If there's a success story for the Imperial Truth, it's in 30K's Mars. It is also a blunt example of the Emperor's hypocrisy and ends justifying the means. Because he is manipulating Mars. He set up the core of the belief system he's cashing in on. He engineered those thousands of years of fanatical dogma and all the ruin that followed, and now he strolls in to reap the rewards. The Emperor is not nice. The Emperor's plan for humanity is not gentle. There is untold and uncounted suffering, and the book does not shy away from it, just as Outcast Dead refuses to blink away from the agonies of change on Terra. But the book asks you to consider: is this necessary, in a setting where humanity nearly wiped itself out with AI (and if that isn't particularly poignant right now, eh)? What freedoms will you give up for safety and progress? There is light at the end of the tunnel. We see it here. We see the shining, golden idea of it. We see what could be, what could have been. But there's still a lot of dark left to walk to get there, over god knows how many bodies... McNeill understood 30K in a way few other authors did. There are better stories in the Heresy, perhaps, but I don't think anybody did more for the setting than McNeill did.

Switching gears and moving to my Szarekhan Dynasty. Pleased with my skorpekh, will get a squad of 6 going.

I think some different criticisms are being bundled together here. The cynical end-of-days YouTube stuff is worthy of mockery, and I do not think anyone here is defending it. MoriyaSchism’s point seems narrower: GW can be a successful, well-run company and still give individual customers legitimate reasons to criticize its prices, product quality, or service. That comes from someone who also cares about Warhammer and wants their experience of it to be better.

Painboy is done. I'm painting way too slowly.

Finished my Ultramarines squad. Ostensibly they're for my son but on the sly I did them to update the Betrayal at Calth minis so I made them Vet Tacs. I also couldn't resist doing Thiel. Even if he isn't part of the story of the board game he was on Calth and that was enough justification for me. The A on the shoulder pads is the first letter of my son's name. He insisted on it.

https://www.kobo.com/se/en/ebook/blood-of-the-godeater I was never here and you didn't see this.

Huh, this is cool. Templates for building your own Exodite Terrain. More of this, James.