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 Shadow Walker wrote:
Custodes are tomorrow's Focus.

They keep forgetting to spotlight the best army

I wonder how much variability of sales by region complicates things.

waaaaghboss wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Custodes are tomorrow's Focus.

They keep forgetting to spotlight the best army

Chill, they're after Custodes assuming you mean orks.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 dan2026 wrote:
Speaking of stock. Why is stock for World Eaters models still so variable?
Are they just that popular?
Or are they jsut not making enough?

A little of column A and a little of column B.

WE are very recent so they're top of mind for those trying to collect. At the same time it is almost certain that a large portion of GW's capacity is currently focused on producing Leviathan boxes creating a bottleneck.

Having to produce a mountain of filler sprues for a bunch of popular character releases like Azreal, Snikrot, Farsight or the Lion certainly didn't help with getting sufficient capacity out of their productions lines either.

While I totally loved those boarding patrol boxes for their savings, you really shouldn't be producing discount deals when your full price stock is getting torn from them shelves faster than you can produce it.

Not to mention overseas gets this worse because GW has to ship that in big waves instead of being able to adapt on the fly as they can a bit with UK stock it seems.

Corona messed GW up and I suspect that global shipping issues since then have kept things hard to simply get under control easily.

Also lets not forget over the last few years GW saw growth way beyond their general estimations. So their market grew at the same time; which means more demand and more stuff fast running out of stock

 Overread wrote:
Not to mention overseas gets this worse because GW has to ship that in big waves instead of being able to adapt on the fly as they can a bit with UK stock it seems.

Corona messed GW up and I suspect that global shipping issues since then have kept things hard to simply get under control easily.

Also lets not forget over the last few years GW saw growth way beyond their general estimations. So their market grew at the same time; which means more demand and more stuff fast running out of stock

According to The Painting Phase (and their two former GW staff), GW got a second factory online in time to cover the post-COVID demand and it almost immediately hit capacity. They're now looking at options for a third UK factory to meet demand.

And don't forget that UK trade is in a bit of an "interesting times" phase right now.

 xttz wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Not to mention overseas gets this worse because GW has to ship that in big waves instead of being able to adapt on the fly as they can a bit with UK stock it seems.

Corona messed GW up and I suspect that global shipping issues since then have kept things hard to simply get under control easily.

Also lets not forget over the last few years GW saw growth way beyond their general estimations. So their market grew at the same time; which means more demand and more stuff fast running out of stock

According to The Painting Phase (and their two former GW staff), GW got a second factory online in time to cover the post-COVID demand and it almost immediately hit capacity. They're now looking at options for a third UK factory to meet demand.

Yeah that second one was the one they were bringing online to expand into steadily so that it hit capacity is really a big sign of how much demand rose for GW stuff.

I figure right now they've a few things

1) One of their factories had power issues from the local network so couldn't run at full capacity; that would be a big thing for GW to get resolved and might even be a barrier to more factories at their main site.

2) They might well be biding their time to see if the higher demand lasts long term. A good many firms made big investments in expanding during the Pandemic and are now having to cut back a lot because the demand rose and then fell in very sharp waves. Both as a result of lockdowns and covid ending, but also the spike in "cost of living" crisis also sparking a further sales slump. So GW might well bide their time to make sure that demand really is going to last long term for them; or if perhaps in a year or two its evened out and they don't actually need another factory (esp if they get more of their warehousing sorted and if shipping continues to gradually settle down).

Keeping inventory of a large number of SKUs in multiple regional warehouses worldwide from a central production hub is a forecasting and distribution challenge that can easily be upset by demand spikes and shipping delays. If army X goes from slow steady sales to flavor of the month without being projected properly (or expected at all) out of stock is what happens.

 Overread wrote:

2) They might well be biding their time to see if the higher demand lasts long term. A good many firms made big investments in expanding during the Pandemic and are now having to cut back a lot because the demand rose and then fell in very sharp waves. Both as a result of lockdowns and covid ending, but also the spike in "cost of living" crisis also sparking a further sales slump. So GW might well bide their time to make sure that demand really is going to last long term for them; or if perhaps in a year or two its evened out and they don't actually need another factory (esp if they get more of their warehousing sorted and if shipping continues to gradually settle down).

Yep.

Easy for armschair ceo's to say increase production to meet demand.

But can gw trust demand stay high? Increasing it is not quick and not cheap. If demand drops then that's expensive increase wasted. Albeit as gw doesn't take loan to increase production worst can be avoided but still a risk.

tneva82 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

2) They might well be biding their time to see if the higher demand lasts long term. A good many firms made big investments in expanding during the Pandemic and are now having to cut back a lot because the demand rose and then fell in very sharp waves. Both as a result of lockdowns and covid ending, but also the spike in "cost of living" crisis also sparking a further sales slump. So GW might well bide their time to make sure that demand really is going to last long term for them; or if perhaps in a year or two its evened out and they don't actually need another factory (esp if they get more of their warehousing sorted and if shipping continues to gradually settle down).

Yep.

Easy for armschair ceo's to say increase production to meet demand.

But can gw trust demand stay high? Increasing it is not quick and not cheap. If demand drops then that's expensive increase wasted. Albeit as gw doesn't take loan to increase production worst can be avoided but still a risk.

Yep their policy of not using loans is a powerful move. It does mean that they expand slower than if they took out loans; but at the same time it means they remain in control over their own finances. If the demand falls and the new factory isn't needed as much they can close down units; let staff go and cut their expenses to match; whilst still having the factory and its assets to either sell on in the worst case or simply hold in storage before an expansion in the future. All without the noose of a huge loan and interest repayments (esp as what can often cause a slump is a dip in economies in general)

 Overread wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

2) They might well be biding their time to see if the higher demand lasts long term. A good many firms made big investments in expanding during the Pandemic and are now having to cut back a lot because the demand rose and then fell in very sharp waves. Both as a result of lockdowns and covid ending, but also the spike in "cost of living" crisis also sparking a further sales slump. So GW might well bide their time to make sure that demand really is going to last long term for them; or if perhaps in a year or two its evened out and they don't actually need another factory (esp if they get more of their warehousing sorted and if shipping continues to gradually settle down).

Yep.

Easy for armschair ceo's to say increase production to meet demand.

But can gw trust demand stay high? Increasing it is not quick and not cheap. If demand drops then that's expensive increase wasted. Albeit as gw doesn't take loan to increase production worst can be avoided but still a risk.

Yep their policy of not using loans is a powerful move. It does mean that they expand slower than if they took out loans; but at the same time it means they remain in control over their own finances. If the demand falls and the new factory isn't needed as much they can close down units; let staff go and cut their expenses to match; whilst still having the factory and its assets to either sell on in the worst case or simply hold in storage before an expansion in the future. All without the noose of a huge loan and interest repayments (esp as what can often cause a slump is a dip in economies in general)

It bears one risk though - if they go on to massively under-serve demand, and make too little use of their valuable IPs, they become a very tempting target to forcefully overtake/buy out and start mining all that gold. It's not an immediate danger, and few entities have the cash and the willingness to do so in the notoriously fickle toy/games/entertainment market, but i'd keep an eye out for circling sharks just in case. For example, Embracer group, an entity with roughly 10x the market capitalization of GW, has been expanding, or rather buying its way into the board game and classical games market lately (having dealt with digital games mostly before) and has acquired companies like Asmodee and miniaturemarket already; now they've also got the license to produce games, boardgames and miniatures based on LOTR - they're building a very intersting portfolio, and a stab at Warhammer as a strong IP to base their production on is something that could be possible in the short-to-medium future. GW has gotten more press and media coverage in the post-COVID era, and their quaint, idiosyncratic mismanagement will not be overlooked forever the way the community tends to do. Somewhere, somewhen somebody is going to realize that there is gold in them there hills and make an attempt at getting to it.

Tsagualsa wrote:
Somewhere, somewhen somebody is going to realize that there is gold in them there hills and make an attempt at getting to it.

Got to say on these forums "GW, £3.2 billion but still undervalued and someone should buy them" is a major reverse from "GW, sure, record sales at the moment, but they are going bust tomorrow".

Tyel wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
Somewhere, somewhen somebody is going to realize that there is gold in them there hills and make an attempt at getting to it.

Got to say on these forums "GW, £3.2 billion but still undervalued and someone should buy them" is a major reverse from "GW, sure, record sales at the moment, but they are going bust tomorrow".

Well the IP is gold.

Question is, will the plastic production get toppled by 3D printing or not?

Not Online!!! wrote:
Well the IP is gold.

The expansion into tv projects will really be the test. If they get that right, it could boost the value incredibly.

Not Online!!! wrote:


Question is, will the plastic production get toppled by 3D printing or not?

Genuine question: can you 3D print hard plastic minis? If not, I doubt many would abaddon current HIPS from GW for resin.

 Shadow Walker wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:


Question is, will the plastic production get toppled by 3D printing or not?

Genuine question: can you 3D print hard plastic minis? If not, I doubt many would abaddon current HIPS from GW for resin.

Filament printers are plastic, right now they have issues with detail, since they normally come with too large muzzles and are right now slower if you want better detail (there are smaller ones for better detail but not standard and just one of the pitfalls of 3d printing). But you can even now get quite acceptable filament plastic printers for models to work.

It' is bound to become better and it has the advantage of not being resin.


Will it surpass GW's hips ? depends, the more expensive GW gets the more the alternatives sink in opportunity cost and that may be dangeours.

Question is not about quality, question is will every wargamer have access to enough 3D printers to get models in a short time and are they willing to pay the price

Is 3D printing replacing HIPS? No, just look on how many people print their Napeolonic soldiers instead of buying plastics (because HIPS is still the best option price and quality)

Is 3D printing replacing GW models? Yes and will be as long as GW keeps increasing the prices

Solution for GW is simply to lower prices if it becomes a real problem (and they have a big enough margin to do that if necessary)

Not Online!!! wrote:

Tyel wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
Somewhere, somewhen somebody is going to realize that there is gold in them there hills and make an attempt at getting to it.

Got to say on these forums "GW, £3.2 billion but still undervalued and someone should buy them" is a major reverse from "GW, sure, record sales at the moment, but they are going bust tomorrow".

Well the IP is gold.

Question is, will the plastic production get toppled by 3D printing or not?

Right now - no

There's two barriers
1) 3D printing as a production method doesn't scale as well as casting nor injection moulding. You'd need a warehouse of printers (and more staff to manage them) to cover the same production output as one of GW's plastic injection machines. When you look at the prices for 3d print models they are not too far off what regular cast companies charge, because in the end its just a different production method. Like plastic, metal and resin you pay pennies in material costs; the real cost comes from running a business. Paying staff wages; overheads; taxes and soforth.

2) 3D printing is dangerous and toxic. Certainly with the resin/SLA system its basically not suitable for younger users without proper supervision and quite honestly a lot of adults are not safe with it when it comes to home use. It's not helped that al ot of youtubers often have videos of them talking and presenting alongside their running printers; or handling buildplates and parts without gloves on or eye protection and such. That many printers often come with either no or bad PPE (eg some include a standard medical/covid facemask which doesn't work at all) and often very limited to no instructions - it breeds an environment of dangerous ignorance.


Yes you can still undercut GW and many firms do in terms of price per model; at the same time GW can invest way more into marketing and many customers are not buying 3D prints but actual models from a highstreet store or a main store. I think 3D printing still has time to change the market, but a wholesale change is a very long way off and requires certain barriers to be breached to move it from what is basically a growing, but super niche of a niche; into a mainstream within the niche.



Another aspect is the styling. Even if 3D printing can rise to equal; in the end part of what you pay GW for is the actual designs they make.

Finally clean-up and material properties - unless you resupport and use certain tough resins; cleanup on 3D prints can take way longer than for plastic models. The materials are different and sometimes its just easier to do in plastic like GW produces. Plus plastics can do thin parts and have them come out more durable than many more affordable high detail resins.

So there's give and take on both sides. Could 3D printing one day replace other production methods - possibly. Right now I'd say its growing and the market is certainly evolving a lot. We are seeing printers getting better and smarter - Athena is coming to market with pressure sensors built into the build arm which allows it to pause on fails and dynamically scale its lift speeds and exposures based on FEP separation and resin flow rates. We are setting ballscrews becoming more common; we are seeing 12K printer screens starting to appear

Tyel wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
Somewhere, somewhen somebody is going to realize that there is gold in them there hills and make an attempt at getting to it.

Got to say on these forums "GW, £3.2 billion but still undervalued and someone should buy them" is a major reverse from "GW, sure, record sales at the moment, but they are going bust tomorrow".

I don’t think I’ve really seen many people predicting GW’s doom for awhile now. I’m sure there’s still some, but that was more prevalent during previous leadership (our customers are sheep, who’s even heard of Pokémon?) when stock prices were falling. They turned that around quite well though.

 kodos wrote:
Question is not about quality, question is will every wargamer have access to enough 3D printers to get models in a short time and are they willing to pay the price

Is 3D printing replacing HIPS? No, just look on how many people print their Napeolonic soldiers instead of buying plastics (because HIPS is still the best option price and quality)

Is 3D printing replacing GW models? Yes and will be as long as GW keeps increasing the prices

Solution for GW is simply to lower prices if it becomes a real problem (and they have a big enough margin to do that if necessary)

Question is, will shareholders accept the cut in the profit margin there.
Chances are they will not tolerate lower earnings.

worst case for GW with their production capacity is to lease out capacity to other companies, likely outside gaming space, for injection moulding

that its all bought cash and not on finance changes the economics hugely

and while 3d printing as an organisation doesn't scale easily for an individual, or small group you can still print faster than you can likely paint - say 3-4 hours for a squad of "angry space dudes" etc

indeed suspect it would be faster to print them than to go out, buy them, come home and then build them to both being ready to prime.

and you don't need to print many to be cheaper, it comes down to an upfront cost and how much time you invest into setting it up and space to operate it

its notable that Historical figures, with likely vastly lower production runs, in HIPS are far cheaper, and thats with out sourced manufacturing

GW are not in trouble yet, and won't be for quite some time, they are that rare beastie, a cash rich company without significant debt

GW would do well to embrace 3d-prints as a service. Imagine a HeroForge-like solution where you could receive a print or .stl of your own space marine lieutenant, posed and equipped like you want, but otherwise 'GW-compliant' in terms of style and modelling. This would leave them free to pursue injection molding for stuff other than small-run characters and the like. You would think the people at Forge World have enough experience working with resin that the work safety aspect of such a transition could be made fairly easily.

Instead, they are focusing more on publishing expensive hardcover books that need to be FAQ'ed day one because apparently editing is not a required skill in the design studio, but that is a different gripe.

Honestly, they could just do an affordable subscription service with digital books and live updates of FAQs and have the physical books be a collector's item and still rake in the money.

its something they could do in store, bespoke service, higher cost, but combine with a scanner in a larger shop and little Timmy (tm) gets a marine character with his own head and face added

thing is GW make their own injection moulding tooling, as such they can make short run injection mould characters etc basically for nominal cost - its really just an opportunity cost for them as to what "x" hours of tooling manufacture and "y" hours of production can be used for profitably

Not Online!!! wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Question is not about quality, question is will every wargamer have access to enough 3D printers to get models in a short time and are they willing to pay the price

Is 3D printing replacing HIPS? No, just look on how many people print their Napeolonic soldiers instead of buying plastics (because HIPS is still the best option price and quality)

Is 3D printing replacing GW models? Yes and will be as long as GW keeps increasing the prices

Solution for GW is simply to lower prices if it becomes a real problem (and they have a big enough margin to do that if necessary)

Question is, will shareholders accept the cut in the profit margin there.
Chances are they will not tolerate lower earnings.

less margin does not mean less profit, same as if GW starts selling less because of the high price, will shareholders tolerate the lower earnings or ask GW to act and increase sales again?

there is a limit were less sales with higher margin results in less profit because there is competition from printing
and this is were GW can act easily to increase sales again until

just as long as they sell out on everything, neither a reason to reduce prices or see 3d printing as a problem

GW are running production at capacity, this suggests they could adapt to a dip in margins by expanding production - only works so far but they do have some flex

their main goal is almost certainly bringing in new players, a new player likely has a much higher annual spend than an existing player

they will know to a reasonably high level what hard cash profit they can get from a production "hour" through various product lines

3d printing eats at the edges, I doubt there are many new players with fully 3d printed armies, and as with the music industry whining last decade those individuals were never going to be customers

GW can quite easily expand profit, with lower margins, they appear to prefer to try and extract the most milk with the least moo, which is sensible for them

I think the issue is whether the bulk of GW's customers are "miniature buyers" first or "Warhammer players".

And I think that argument is complicated. The miniatures clearly matter - because you could play 40k or whatever with bits of paper or cardboard (hello 2nd Ed Ork dreadnought) - but people mostly don't. Equally you've been able to buy cheaper alternative models than GW for decades, and again people mostly don't.

This can however lead you to Kirbyism. I.E. the customer is addicted to plastic crack, they just want something to stick on their shelf, it doesn't matter if our games suck because half of them never play anyway.

But I don't think that's true. Because there's no "gateway" to plastic crack if you take the game away. (Which is why Fantasy died and 40k was getting a bit ropey).

Basically its hard for me to imagine a scenario where 40k is still "big" - somehow drawing in new and existing players - but then rather than buying the models GW (or other companies) are actively trying to sell they all go home and print their own "not-Space Marines" to play with. The whole sales pitch is tied up with the game, the store, the IP and the models.

Basically if I don't care that much about 40k, I just don't buy anything - and certainly won't print any models so I can play off-brand 40k on the cheap. If GW have made me care about 40k, they'll probably also convinced to buy the models as well. A few people will go between the gaps - but I don't know why it should expand to consume all the market.

Its a slightly different topic - but its a bit like asking "who on earth buys models from GW at full RRP?" Once you've found an FLGS who has say a 20% discount it seems like madness. But I suspect the answer is "lots of people". Either because they don't know about the discount - or because its only the odd occasional purchase and so it doesn't seem like a big deal.

Tyel wrote:
I think the issue is whether the bulk of GW's customers are "miniature buyers" first or "Warhammer players".

And I think that argument is complicated. The miniatures clearly matter - because you could play 40k or whatever with bits of paper or cardboard (hello 2nd Ed Ork dreadnought) - but people mostly don't. Equally you've been able to buy cheaper alternative models than GW for decades, and again people mostly don't.

This can however lead you to Kirbyism. I.E. the customer is addicted to plastic crack, they just want something to stick on their shelf, it doesn't matter if our games suck because half of them never play anyway.

But I don't think that's true. Because there's no "gateway" to plastic crack if you take the game away. (Which is why Fantasy died and 40k was getting a bit ropey).

Basically its hard for me to imagine a scenario where 40k is still "big" - somehow drawing in new and existing players - but then rather than buying the models GW (or other companies) are actively trying to sell they all go home and print their own "not-Space Marines" to play with. The whole sales pitch is tied up with the game, the store, the IP and the models.

Basically if I don't care that much about 40k, I just don't buy anything - and certainly won't print any models so I can play off-brand 40k on the cheap. If GW have made me care about 40k, they'll probably also convinced to buy the models as well. A few people will go between the gaps - but I don't know why it should expand to consume all the market.

Its a slightly different topic - but its a bit like asking "who on earth buys models from GW at full RRP?" Once you've found an FLGS who has say a 20% discount it seems like madness. But I suspect the answer is "lots of people". Either because they don't know about the discount - or because it's only the odd occasional purchase and so it doesn't seem like a big deal.

Very nice points. I think the underlined part sums up exactly how 3d printing would erode that GW pitch and would not be in GW best interest. Cant blame them and actually I take my hat to hobby companies with a clear strategy to stick with the plan even its labeled this day has "traditional". Would anyone be exited to get just a STL for the new 40k edition box rather than the actually box with the minis? Some may say you can have both... Well thats not true for many companies that ceased to exist due to this digital avalanche or actually changed so much they dont sell minis anymore, just Kickstart files.

Tyel wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
Somewhere, somewhen somebody is going to realize that there is gold in them there hills and make an attempt at getting to it.

Got to say on these forums "GW, £3.2 billion but still undervalued and someone should buy them" is a major reverse from "GW, sure, record sales at the moment, but they are going bust tomorrow".

Not Online!!! wrote:

Tyel wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
Somewhere, somewhen somebody is going to realize that there is gold in them there hills and make an attempt at getting to it.

Got to say on these forums "GW, £3.2 billion but still undervalued and someone should buy them" is a major reverse from "GW, sure, record sales at the moment, but they are going bust tomorrow".

Well the IP is gold.

All i'm saying is that GW is leaving a lot of money on the table, and if i someone wanted to put some work towards making that a reality someone who has great experience in making and marketing IP-based video games, has just bought some distributors and printers and also holds a very relevant license for a property that GW used to produce models for in the very recent past looks pretty much like an ideal partner. It does not need to go as far as outright buying GW, a strong cooperation, jkoint ventures or even a merger as a long-term prospect might also be in the cards. The home entertainment market is notoriously fickle though, all that may change on the drop of a hat. And GW seems to have plans of their own, what with the cooperation with Amazon for the Cavill series, and their renewed attempt at an MMO (probably).

I think AoS showed that GW customers by and large, are at the very least buyers with intent to game not just collectors of models. Otherwise AoS would have been a success.

And yeah GW is currently running at full production capacity and looking to potentially expand. They are not hurting from 3D printing in the least right now. If there is any hurt its market potential GW can't capitalise on at all right now so its not harming their bottom line.


GW recruits not just because new people are more likely to spend, but the more they get people into the hobby the more chance they have ot get new older customers in years to come with more disposable income. In contrast to hobbies like hornby and such, which rely purely on the old guard; GW has pushed for new young-blood to get into the hobby all the time. This means GW is constantly getting new generations into the hobby; which leaves them room to grow older and such.

Kirby era did have issues; they undervalued the long term customer and hyper valued the new in a disposable manner. Honestly Kirby era feels like they were purely looking at internal stats, sales figures and such and not building it in context of player opinion, feedback and such

Tyel wrote:

Its a slightly different topic - but its a bit like asking "who on earth buys models from GW at full RRP?" Once you've found an FLGS who has say a 20% discount it seems like madness. But I suspect the answer is "lots of people". Either because they don't know about the discount - or because its only the odd occasional purchase and so it doesn't seem like a big deal.

There's also a sense of supporting local stores. So if your only local is a GW or the local you play at is a GW then buying stuff from there helps keep that store going for you locally to play in. Which also means more local recruitment of people so its a net win. Yes you pay more per-model; but the trade off is you have a local active gaming scene and more people getting into the hobby