How do GW improve sales?

[SvenIronhand]

4 hours ago, Griefbringer said:

Also, adult customers may have an effective "impulse buy price limit" as to what they are willing to pay for a product without thinking about the topic overnight. I tend to plan my purchases for a couple of days, but I can occasionally be enticed to buy modestly priced items on impulse - but less likely to do so with items priced above £20 or so (which sort of matches with upper end of the pocket money category for the youngsters).

For sure.

[Evil Eye]

I think more impulse-buy priced products would 100% help. If you could buy a small model for £15 or less (like the days of metal models on blister packs) I would be far more likely to splurge on a character or whatever when I went in. The fact the cheapest model is like £24 makes "sure why not" turn into "hmmm, some other time" more often than not.

[Lathe Biosas]

36 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

I think more impulse-buy priced products would 100% help. If you could buy a small model for £15 or less (like the days of metal models on blister packs) I would be far more likely to splurge on a character or whatever when I went in. The fact the cheapest model is like £24 makes "sure why not" turn into "hmmm, some other time" more often than not.

 

Heck, I bought one of those random Age of Sigmar models from a Target for 8 bucks.

 

I didnt actually need it, but strangely 8 dollars seemed like a good deal for a Warhammer model.

[Halandaar]

2 hours ago, Griefbringer said:

Regarding that "magic £20 price point", maybe I should mention that the various Journal-supplements for the Specialist Games are still priced below that, at £17.50 (and do not need require any glue or paint). I have actually impulse bought a number of the Arcane Journals (The Old World), but they are quite close to my impulse buy limit, and somewhat limited value for the money at 48 pages. And while the ones I have got are nicely done, they provide rather limited depth to the background ("lore") or game itself, so I have decided to abstain from buying more for the time being unless they come with some excellent ones (or provide more content for the price).

 

I presume that many youngsters would rather spend their £20 not on a handful of models to assemble and paint, than on a Journal-style booklet. The Specialist Games range does not offer much in the way of options at that price point either - typical Necromunda box (two identical sprues of four models) or Blood Bowl team box seems to come at £33.50 which would require some saving up for someone relying on pocket money. (There might be some educational value in teaching a young person to plan ahead a bit and save for something that the person really wants, rather than blowing everything on impulse purchases, but I am not counting on that being part of GW business plan...)

 

Yeah Arcane Journals are in the sweet spot for me to consider picking one up when placing an order for something else, especially at FLGS prices when I'm looking to hit a free shipping threshold. As a result, I have a lot of them. But if there were decent plastic characters at a similar price, I'd probably pick those up instead, and kids would certainly find models more compelling than rulebooks supplements, at least initially.

 

Personally feel that there is a perfect range of products that already exists for the £5/£10 price point, and it's single pose push-fit character models. Stuff like the Royal Warden, Tyranid Prime, Astartes Lieutenants, Technoarcheologist etc. GW is prepared to put these things on the front of £2.99 Hachette magazines, there's absolutely no reason to price them like premium kits the rest of the time.

Edited Saturday at 04:04 PM by Halandaar

[Dark Shepherd]

23 hours ago, Halandaar said:

 

You can't rely on a single product launch every three years to bring in new hobbyists, you need to give them an affordable on-ramp all the time. Sure, an introductory box with a couple of squads worth of models and some paints is fine conceptually, but it's nearly £50. That might suit adults looking to start the hobby, but it's useless for kids/teens who simply aren't going to have that kind of money available, and parents will often balk at spending that much on something they don't know the kids are going to stick with.

 

Pocket money prices have been mentioned a few times in this thread and I think ignoring those is such a massive failure by GW. You can't nostalgia-bait millennials forever, you need a new wave of hobbyists in 10 years, 20 years and so on. Giving a kid a free Clanrat at the Warhammer store is meaningless if, when they have a tenner of pocket money to spend, you haven't got a good product to offer them.

 

If you go to the web store and the "shop all" tab of 40k and sort by price. The cheapest complete model you can buy is a pair of Tau Drones for £13. There are only six kits (excluding upgrade sets which are useless on their own) for under £20 in the entire range. SIX. And four of them are webstore only, so in all likelihood a kid going in to a GW or FLGS with £20 to spend is walking away empty handed. It honestly boggles my mind.

 

When I was starting out in the 90s there was a huge amount of stuff I could spend my few quid on; boxes of plastic models for £5, blister packs of metals for the same price, single models for cheaper. In 4-5 edition there were little £5 boxes of push-fit core troops, and even as recently as 8th you had those £10 easy-build boxes. £5, £10, £20 are psychological thresholds and failing to have model kits available at those prices to keep kids (and adults with limited budget available) engaged until they can build up to bigger sets is, imo, GWs biggest failing in their product offering currently.

The ETB kits from 8th!!

 

They were great, and from what I remember, popular

[Evil Eye]

2 hours ago, Dark Shepherd said:

The ETB kits from 8th!!

 

They were great, and from what I remember, popular

I should buy more blight-haulers. They're very cheap and honestly great kits, and I can see them being great for kitbashes as they're surprisingly detailed despite being incredibly beginner-friendly.

[Karhedron]

6 hours ago, Dark Shepherd said:

The ETB kits from 8th!!

 

The problem with ETB kits is that each sprue GW tools costs upwards of £100K. If they sell ETBs alongside the MPKs, they risk making it harder for the MPKs to break even. 

[Griefbringer]

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

If they sell ETBs alongside the MPKs, they risk making it harder for the MPKs to break even. 

 

At the corporate level, it is the total sales that matter, not really whether the individual kits break even. That said, if you make two different versions of the same product, then the total sales need to go up to justify the costs of designing and tooling two versions of the same product.

 

( I presume that ETB = Easy to Build, and MPK = Multi-Part Kit.)

[Jukkiz]

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

The problem with ETB kits is that each sprue GW tools costs upwards of £100K. If they sell ETBs alongside the MPKs, they risk making it harder for the MPKs to break even. 

Yet again, they keep making one off models or fomo models still. 

The yearly subscribing models is prime examples of this. Why make them one offs if they could be sold later with regular prices and get some molding costs back? 

[Halandaar]

6 hours ago, Karhedron said:

The problem with ETB kits is that each sprue GW tools costs upwards of £100K. If they sell ETBs alongside the MPKs, they risk making it harder for the MPKs to break even. 

 

And yet GW has just put out not only a sprue of 5 Marines including 3 Eradicators, but inexplicably, another sprue featuring the same 3 Eradicators on their own for no obvious reason. Cutting new sprues doesn't seem to be an issue for them, especially not when they're cranking out yet another Space Marine Lieutenant.

 

Aside from this, most of the models I'd propose for this hypothetical Saver Menu range don't have multipart alternatives anyway. I'm talking about stuff like the Necron Royal Warden, Ork Weirdboy and Tyranid Winged Prime in the £5 slot, the Lokhust Destroyer, Von Ryan's Leapers and Death Guard Blighthauler in a £15 slot, the Doomstalker, Wartrakk and Psychophage at £20

 

The core troops at £10 slot is the only one where there would potentially be overlap and that's alleviated mostly through the numbers not lining up neatly and options limited to the main kit. Stuff like for Tyranids doing the 3 Termagants and a Ripper base that you used to get in the paint set; 3 packs for £30 is more than the "main" kit, for one less termagant (but 2 more Ripper Swarms) and no weapon options. Similarly for Necrons, I'd do the 3 Warrior sprue from the paint set - 3 packs for £30 is £3.50 less than the main kit but you miss out on the Scarab Swarms and the choice of weapons.

 

I mean it's not like GW couldn't actually produce new kits (or recut older models from larger sprues, as they have done many times before) to fit these specific niches.

 

[havlar]

To answer the question directly - I'm afraid not much would have a big impact in the current economic climate. (And unfortunately lowering prices would be almost immediately out - it's a very tough sell to convince the board that reduced unit profit is going to be counter-balanced by an overall sales increase, especially given that we are talking about luxury products with a large initial buy-in).

 

I would drive a parallel to LotR and Dawn of War situations of 2000s - biggest GW's victory would come from external factors, not from what they really do - in this case surge popularity of Total War 40k and/or the TV series.

[MoriyaSchism]

The "character tax" is the reason I haven't bought a Space Marine Character or any characters for that matter in the last 5 years, other than the Captain Centos model I got off Ebay. Lieutenants and Captains with very little customization ranging from 34 to 38.50 Euro are just too expensive for what they are. An almost 40 Euro character kit should be on the same level as the old Space Marine Force Commander and Chaos Terminator Lord kits. I used to buy blisters packs of metal character sculpts for money scrounged up from left over change from lunch money and those were either single character sculpts or a couple of guys with special weapons. Modern characters should offer the same sort of purchase experience. A sprue that's smaller than a credit card should be 16 to 20 euro at most. 

[Griefbringer]

Regarding the economic climate issues: while in hard times people tend to cut on the luxury product spending, this does not affect all products equally. Instead, the sales of some products in the cheaper end of the scale actually pick up - this is commonly known as the "lipstick effect" as those are some of the products which tend to pick up in sales.

 

I am not advocating for GW to put up its own lipstick brand, though it would be quite easy to come up with a name for one ("Warhammer Rouge Trader"). Besides, the individual paint pots tend to fall into similar price.

 

And also, while people might be less willing to start collecting a whole new army with lots of models, they might still be willing to invest in games with smaller model requirements. Kill Team box, Necromunda gang or Blood Bowl team might still be within the "affordable luxury" range. Actually, compared to many of the other products, the Blood Bowl teams seem to provide decent value for money; while the modelling options may be limited, you get 12 or more models for £33.50 and my impression is that the teams are very playable straight out of the box (I do not personally play Blood Bowl - maybe I should try one day).

[Orange Knight]

GW sales are fine. I think external issues will and have affected them.

Living costs are suddenly higher, people can't spend as much on models. It's a luxury after all

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Battle forces that didn’t have models that have already been replaced would probably be a good start.

 

battle forces that aren’t 90% old kits that are likely to be replaced fairly soon would probably be a good start.

[Adeptekon]

I'm surprised the scale hasn't gone back down to 28mm with shrinkflation.

[Robbienw]

On 10/18/2026 at 3:02 PM, Karhedron said:

 

The problem with ETB kits is that each sprue GW tools costs upwards of £100K. If they sell ETBs alongside the MPKs, they risk making it harder for the MPKs to break even. 

 

That wont be the case for every tool.  Smaller simpler ones will cost less than large multi sprue molds.

[StraightSilver]

Controversial opinion (not intended to be rage bait). Also slightly tongue in cheek (although it does grind my gears).

 

Take the ITC out of 40K. It's killing the game.

 

Make 40K fun again. Down with L-Shaped terrain and boring tables.

There, I said it. :)

[appiah4]

They could, and probably should, start by making a game that doessn't have :cuss: rules behind a monthly subscription paywall. 

[Lathe Biosas]

Brothers, I am about to pitch an idea so cursed, so structurally unhinged, that it feels exactly like the scary boat ride from Willy Wonka. Strap yourselves in, because there is no earthly way of knowing where this idea is going...

 

Age of Sigmar, Warhammer 40,000 and Horus Heresy all have the same rules system and all armies can play against each other! 

 

 

Round the grimdark and home again

That’s the gamer’s way

Faster meta, faster meta

There’s no earthly way of knowing

Which edition we are playing

There’s no knowing who we're slaying

Or which system's rules are staying

Is it 40k, is it Fantasy

Is a double-turn a-blowing

Not a speck of balance showing

So the power-creep must be growing

Are the Skaven vermin a-glowing

Is the Space Marine captain mowing

Yes, the danger must be growing

For the designers keep on printing

And they’re certainly not showing

Any signs that they are slowing!

 

[Pacific81]

I think with the global economy & other factors GW was a bubble waiting to burst from a share value perspective.

That being said I think the price elasticity was reaching its limit - the prices for a full army of 40k/AoS are frankly borderline obscene. 

I worry how this will affect getting young people (or especially from non-wealthy backgrounds) getting into the hobby.

Skirmish games are available but these are often inaccessible to newbies or are not the deals they once were (Necromunda gangs etc).

 

I really hope GW takes the warning signs as an opportunity to at least pause price rises, perhaps even make the game development & rules a bigger part of the process (I think at present they are very negligible), for the sake of the industry. Otherwise we might have another late 00s era of the company flying in tighter circles, cancelling games, and otherwise nasty period of waging war on their fanbase.

 

 

[techsoldaten]

On 10/18/2026 at 10:02 AM, Karhedron said:

 

The problem with ETB kits is that each sprue GW tools costs upwards of £100K. If they sell ETBs alongside the MPKs, they risk making it harder for the MPKs to break even. 

 Sprue tooling costs less for a company like Games Workshop because of a) volume and b) specialization. They don't pay retail. There's also a range, a smaller single character sprue does not cost the same as a complex, multi-model sprue. This is part of the reason you see so many characters compared to infantry / armor / etc. 

 

On 10/19/2026 at 6:16 AM, Griefbringer said:

Regarding the economic climate issues: while in hard times people tend to cut on the luxury product spending, this does not affect all products equally. Instead, the sales of some products in the cheaper end of the scale actually pick up - this is commonly known as the "lipstick effect" as those are some of the products which tend to pick up in sales.

 

I am not advocating for GW to put up its own lipstick brand, though it would be quite easy to come up with a name for one ("Warhammer Rouge Trader"). Besides, the individual paint pots tend to fall into similar price.

 

And also, while people might be less willing to start collecting a whole new army with lots of models, they might still be willing to invest in games with smaller model requirements. Kill Team box, Necromunda gang or Blood Bowl team might still be within the "affordable luxury" range. Actually, compared to many of the other products, the Blood Bowl teams seem to provide decent value for money; while the modelling options may be limited, you get 12 or more models for £33.50 and my impression is that the teams are very playable straight out of the box (I do not personally play Blood Bowl - maybe I should try one day).

This phenomenon explains why we have Depression-era brands like Ritz Crackers, Planters Peanuts and King Midas Flour. The marketing emphasized themes of luxury around a product that was inexpensive and dirt-cheap to produce. Enormous staying power and durability.

It's fickle, tho. Consumers have expectations around brands that include quality and are not necessarily willing to accept an inferior product at a lower price point, even when they can no longer afford the original. The Jaguar X-Type is the classic example of this, along with Schlitz Beer, Pierre Cardin and other "premium" brands that either reduced quality or over licensed. Each was rejected by the market because they were considered cheaper versions of the original, diluting the brand by trying to appeal to an audience that was priced out.

Games Workshop is an established brand and I question whether people would be willing to accept decreased quality at a lower price point. What I think they would do (and may already be doing) is something like what the Gap did in the late 90s - set up an alternative line of clothing to sell at outlet stores. What you buy there has the label but none of the quality, same with Old Navy and a lot of other retailers. 

Games Workshop seems to be pursuing this strategy in video games and, in a few years, shows / movie releases. The annual price increases will continue to happen, fewer people will be playing the tabletop game and the majority of people interacting with Warhammer will only be seeing it on screen. That seems the most likely way to grow the brand, and it will necessarily exclude a lot of existing customers. Physical medium with widespread adoption is a hinderance once you reach a certain point, it's harder to control.

[Xenith]

On 10/15/2026 at 11:17 PM, Scribe said:

Yeah the model company with a Cult like following who rode the wave of nerd culture.

 

Very comparable to the company seeking to sell everyone plastic phones for a of dubious quality that takes hours to pay off, and play with, while setting you back thousands.

 

Very much the same as selling everyone a new codex

 

Fixed that for you. Apple and GW have very similar operating models and goals. Both are market leaders. Both are a high end luxury product. Both develop total cult followings with their customers. Both want enough products to lock you in to their buys - iphone, macbook, apple watch, air pods, flash charger; 40k, old world, kill team, GW brushes, GW paints.

 

10 seconds of Abominable Intelligence gave this:

 

And more funnily, this:

 

7 hours ago, Adeptekon said:

I'm surprised the scale hasn't gone back down to 28mm with shrinkflation.

 

They tried that with Imperialis! 

[Robbienw]

With GW though the customers are many and varied.  A vast amount just collect the models, some are even just into the lore.  Its very easy to still be into and continue painting a large accumulated pile and read old lore you like without spending much money at all.  

 

Not the case with Apple products.

[Xenith]

20 minutes ago, Robbienw said:

With GW though the customers are many and varied....Not the case with Apple products.

 

You really cannot say that apple users are not "many and varied". Apple users are literally like 20% of the worlds population - they're for sure a lot more diverse than GW customers. 

 

Apple Customers: Everyone

GW Customers: 99% white middle class male aged 12 - 60. 

Edited 6 hours ago by Xenith