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With all the talk about the modelling aspect of GW, how much do the sales of the many novel series help GW's bottom line, specifically the extremely popular Horus Heresy series? Is the HH enough to carry GW through the current rough patch they've seem to be in the last two or three years, or is it just a drop in the bucket?

It is certainly a moneymaker for them, as possibly the closest they come to 'mass' exposure with it's huge popularity even outside of gaming.

Whether or not that translates into sales of minis is debatable, but it does get the brand out there and obviously the HH is a huge cash cow for Forge World. I doubt it's enough to save the falling bottom line, and the increasing prices and reduced availability of HH paperbacks can't help.

 Paradigm wrote:
It is certainly a moneymaker for them, as possibly the closest they come to 'mass' exposure with it's huge popularity even outside of gaming.

Whether or not that translates into sales of minis is debatable, but it does get the brand out there and obviously the HH is a huge cash cow for Forge World. I doubt it's enough to save the falling bottom line, and the increasing prices and reduced availability of HH paperbacks can't help.

Funny you mention the availability of some of the novels - a few, especially Mechanicum and Fallen Angels - are becoming somewhat expensive on sites like Ebay and Amazon. I do think that they advertise the model line quite well, mostly because of the overall awesomeness of the 40k IP and because the majority of the novels are well-written. Forgeworld itself was inspired enough to create those very nice dioramas of the Primarchs.

With availability, I was more referring to the fact that they now only have a one week preorder for HH novels, and release the normal size paperback almost a year after the super-expensive, limited edition and the Trade paperback size ones. So for paperback collectors (and paperback is the most affordable option, compared with £20 for a hardback every couple of months.) have to wait a whole year to get up to date.

Not really. Subsidiaries (FW, BL, WHW, Digital Editions) account for 1/8 of GW's revenue.

Even if every single penny from that was Horus Heresy, it would barely match the revenue fall in the last financial report.