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I've always found it odd that GW never tried to make Warhammer- fantasy or 40k- action figures. The properties lend themselves really well to being action figures. Considering the more mainstream successes 40k has had in recent years due to video games like Space Marine and the Dawn of War games, I've always felt they could've pushed further into the mainstream and helped introduce a new audience to the franchise by putting out proper action figures. Hell, they could've even tried to integrate a smaller scale game mechanic into it so that you can actually use the toys for something. I'm thinking something like Inquisitor or something along those lines. On top of that, they could've even continued to push the customization aspect. Release accessory sets with swappable helmets, shoulder pads, backpacks and weapons. They could've even had a blurb on the back telling kids to customize their figures and show some pro-painted samples. I really just can't help but feel they missed the boat on this one.

Could you imagine the parents' reactions to when the slaneeshi daeomonnete set came out?

That's probably why.

Although ork action figures would be kickass.

Too Grimdark. Inadvisable to introduce kids to a setting with Sex-cultists, Legion of the Damned, and Chainswords.

The problem is gw is not mainstream thats first.

Second their business model is a little od seeing the amount of new inbox stuff sold on the internet for rather cheap and the people reselling gw product making money off it. Then gw makes annual price hikes.

Action figures are not as profitable as the minis because with action figures they dont have you coming back to build up an army or starting a new one.
Then there is the expense of manufacturing the action figures and packaging yadi yada.

Basically not worth it for such a small company that has such a niche market.

GW itself can't do it.
Hasbo and others aren't interested unless GW makes its IP better known in public than say the G-Force movie, which actually had action figures:

 TheCaptain wrote:
Too Grimdark. Inadvisable to introduce kids to a setting with Sex-cultists, Legion of the Damned, and Chainswords.

If they had ones like Spawn action figures, then I'd be all over it like a fly on poo.

40k isn't big enough for a separate toy line. Imo given the route GW is taking well probably see all-snap fit models for many releases in the next few years.

Gw want to have such absolute control over their IP that it wouldn't serve other companies, like hasbro, Jakks etc to stump up the cash for a licence.

Even if it were to become available, the licence would be exactly what GW wants with no innovation or changes.

Computer games and Cardgames/roleplay are successful for GW because they stick to their own narrow vision.

Well they kinda do, in a sense, models technically are toys and you do play with them, but yeah like people are saying, it would be hard to reason with sex cult, legion of the damned, and chain swords

GW doesnt like merch and advertisement. They like to keep pissing off their relatively small niche fanbase and not expand outwards into a world of potential millions more customers to piss off and ignore.

 d3m01iti0n wrote:
GW doesnt like merch and advertisement. They like to keep pissing off their relatively small niche fanbase and not expand outwards into a world of potential millions more customers to piss off and ignore.

Bingo.

Also, IIRC there was a stryker figure for warmachine as a test for a future line, but it never took off and was the only one produced (making me sad as I wanted a kreoss and severius one) so they might have seen that and decided to drop the idea

 Kroothawk wrote:
GW itself can't do it.
Hasbo and others aren't interested unless GW makes its IP better known in public than say the G-Force movie, which actually had action figures:

Jokareo-Force?
Damn, that should become a movie..

The IP isn't big enough outside the miniatures/rpg gamer niche.
The costs would be prohibitive for GW to do in house.

Too niche for Hasbro/Jakks/McFarlane to want to pony up for the license.

Questionable content for the larger purchasing segment (minors).

Much of the IP too derivative of what's already out there.

Other than that, no reason 40K toys wouldn't happen.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sideshow-Warhammer-40k-Brother-Thraxius-Space-Marine-UltraMarine-NEW-RARE-/320981699747?pt=Games_US&hash=item4abc000ca3

You mean like this?


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I'll leave this here

Statues != Toys

 Lobukia wrote:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sideshow-Warhammer-40k-Brother-Thraxius-Space-Marine-UltraMarine-NEW-RARE-/320981699747?pt=Games_US&hash=item4abc000ca3

You mean like this?


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I'll leave this here

Nope. Theyre giant overpriced painted versions of the tabletop models.

Only if we could use them in apocalypse battles. I'm picturing power rangers style.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Gw want to have such absolute control over their IP that it wouldn't serve other companies, like hasbro, Jakks etc to stump up the cash for a licence.

Even if it were to become available, the licence would be exactly what GW wants with no innovation or changes.

Computer games and Cardgames/roleplay are successful for GW because they stick to their own narrow vision.

Not like there is a lot of innovation in many action figure lines from hasbro or mattel. Heck the 3.75" figures that mattel releases for DC universe these days are about as articulated as the first kenner released star wars figs from 1977. They completely ignore 35 years of articulation improvements to put out figs and don't even charge cheaply for them. Also hasbro's regular lines are full of continually reused bodies, especially for female figures, and repaints of the same figs so that a new wave of 10 figs might only contain 2 or 3 actually new and unique figures,while the rest are slight repaint re-releases, reuses and completely unchanged filler figs. Hardly all that much innovation there.

Larger scale figures have seen some good advances in details, but I really doubt GW's control of their license would limit anything on a release. Heck Lucasarts is VERY strict on its licenses, but Star Wars themed products are available everywhere.

To the OP, the real reason is that GW makes high end collectible miniatures and rules and is not a *toy* company.

Skriker

 Skriker wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Gw want to have such absolute control over their IP that it wouldn't serve other companies, like hasbro, Jakks etc to stump up the cash for a licence.

Even if it were to become available, the licence would be exactly what GW wants with no innovation or changes.

Computer games and Cardgames/roleplay are successful for GW because they stick to their own narrow vision.

Not like there is a lot of innovation in many action figure lines from hasbro or mattel. Heck the 3.75" figures that mattel releases for DC universe these days are about as articulated as the first kenner released star wars figs from 1977. They completely ignore 35 years of articulation improvements to put out figs and don't even charge cheaply for them. Also hasbro's regular lines are full of continually reused bodies, especially for female figures, and repaints of the same figs so that a new wave of 10 figs might only contain 2 or 3 actually new and unique figures,while the rest are slight repaint re-releases, reuses and completely unchanged filler figs. Hardly all that much innovation there.

Larger scale figures have seen some good advances in details, but I really doubt GW's control of their license would limit anything on a release. Heck Lucasarts is VERY strict on its licenses, but Star Wars themed products are available everywhere.

To the OP, the real reason is that GW makes high end collectible miniatures and rules and is not a *toy* company.

Skriker

This is completely true. Having collected the new GIJoe line for a few years I could pick apart almost every figure they produced and tell you who the arms, legs, etc originally belonged to. New sculpts were a big deal.

I think OP's point of view is that while yes, GW is a miniature company, the franchise itself is far to awesome to be pigeonholed into it's small niche market. There is way too much potential here but unfortunately its left to stagnate.

Simply put: Wrong industry. I see why a film studio producing a high-budget movie would license a toy line based on their existing IP in order to make financial ends meet, but for GW it'd mean losing control of their much-treasured IP to an industry that's not too far from their core business, for no clear gain.

Also, I'd like to dispel the myth that reaching a wider audience is something positive for every industry. Unlike Warhammer, other franchises like Star Wars or WoW, can easily reach a global audience without their parent companies having to massively upscale their manufacturing and distribution processes. And, let's face it, GW's fething massive for a wargaming company, but it's easily dwarfed by even the average players in the toy industry.

As a final note, as many have already pointed out, the fact that Warhammer's immensely popular amongst us geeks doesn't mean it'll be received with open arms by the general populace. Some people already dismiss 40k as thinly-veiled nazi propaganda aimed towards kids. And if some churches and family organizations decried Pokèmon for being "cult-like" and "satanic", wait until they see the GUO plushies...

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Modelling-Supplies/IMPERIAL-SPACE-MARINE.html

Not quite the right concept, but about the right size

ULTRASMURF TITAN!

GW did heroquest with Milton Bradley back in 1989 and nearly lost the rights to Warhammer because of it, GW isn't going to be dumb enough to license off the ability to make 'Toy soldiers' based on it's property when that's exactly what GW does.

Long story short, licensing out their property to other companies to make toy soldiers out of them could cost them the ability to make Warhammer 40k and warhammer Fantasy

greyknight12 wrote:http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Modelling-Supplies/IMPERIAL-SPACE-MARINE.html

Not quite the right concept, but about the right size

inb4 "truescale"

Ontopic: I think GW is really missing out. If they'd be willing to expand their audience, they could do so. When Mutant Chronicles and random graphic novels can get their own movies and TV series, then GW not being able to find investors for a proper 40k movie even whilst retaining full IP control just reeks of laziness, or lack of trust in their own franchise. Maybe they think what they have is enough, and would prefer milking that with more price increases.

All that 40k would need is one really good Hollywood movie to make its presence known to the masses. It'd skyrocket from there.

... then again, I'm not entirely sure if that would actually be a good thing, considering what financial success has done to other franchises. And maybe that's why there are individuals within GW who have been blocking such thoughts for years.

I certainly think they could offer more collectibles for the fans they already have, though. Why did they ever stop selling keyrings, amulets or tankards, for example?

A lot of you guys seems to think that GW would outsource the license to another company to produce toys. I don't know why they would do that when they already have the infrastructure in place to produce toys themselves. I'm not sure if it came across that I was suggesting they outsource to Hasbro or something. No, that'd be a dumb idea.

And to you guys who say that being grimdark would keep it from being accessible or acceptable, Spawn proved that you can market just about anything to kids. Spawn had everything from the Devil himself to demons, super soldiers, zombies, robots, hell, even a serial killer peg-legged bum. I think handled correctly, the line could be very accessible to the general public. You don't need to make mention of Slaaneshi sex cults, you don't need to go into the darker aspects of the fluff. I mean, if Gears of War, which is pretty grimdark itself can get not one, but 3 toy lines, I see no reason why Warhammer couldn't. And yes, Gears has 3 lines, the large 7" figures, an upcoming line of GI Joe sized figures, and Erector building sets.

Do you mean Spawn as in the comic book or the mutated Chos monstrosity? I'm not sure if pegleg is on the Chaos Boon chart...

Srsly tho, I don't think kids would really get messed up from the grimdark of 40k. Seeing as any kid old enough to hold a controller plays Call of Duty, they probably won't get too freaked out or the parents won't care either.
I think there's a line between realistic gore (most FPS games) and over-the-top hack and slash. If you've played the Spess Mehreen game, you know how overly violent it is. Honestly, I think that kind of super violence is better than realistic games, because you don't get the same suspension of disbelief.

And I think we should stop freaking out about sexuality. If I had a kid, I would totally buy him a Slaaneshi titty monster, but then I'd smash it and give him a Great Unclean One because Papa Nurgle > Other gods.

Ill just keep making bootleg clothes. 30 bucks at the mall will get me a black fitted cap with a giant embroidered Aquila on the front and a small Templar cross on the back. feth you GW Im paying to advertise your product.

greyknight12 wrote:. ....: I think GW is really missing out. If they'd be willing to expand their audience, they could do so. When Mutant Chronicles and random graphic novels can get their own movies and TV series, then GW not being able to find investors for a proper 40k movie even whilst retaining full IP control just reeks of laziness...

Well' we all know how hard working and diligent GW's lawyers are, Im sure that they would know exactly how to word a contract so that all parties were protected.

A lot of it is probably tied to IP control.

Remember, in the 80s and 90s, a fair number of toys had childrens shows along with them to drive sales. Transformers and GI Joe, for example, existed solely to sell action figures. If a company wanted to properly push the 40K series of toys, they would probably want additional content, which GW would either have to produce in-house on the partner's schedule, or they would have to hand over creative control.

The canon is bad enough as is, with piles of awful, awful material. Would you want to be arguing about the canonicity of a 40K cartoon show?

The moral of this story is GW should push for a big budget movie. HH is their best best. I 100% guarantee that your average scifi/fantasy/action movie goer in the R-rated age group would take one look at a trailer and gak their pants. Then comes merch and increased tabletop sales.