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The big news today is US administration's tariffs effective this week.

10% on UK
20% on EU
20% on China
25% on Canada (previously announced)

And an end to the de minimus exception, so even small packages will be screened and taxed. Besides the costs to customers it also means huge delays in orders from overseas.

Leaving discussion of the logic or benefits of this policy aside, just want people to know and to hear how stores, game makers etc are dealing.

> And an end to the de minimus exception,

China was abusing this like crazy. Their government subsidizes markets so that domestic companies can't compete, etc. etc. GO GO TEMU

> just want people to know and to hear how stores, game makers etc are dealing.

I imagine those delayed dubiously managed crowdfunding campaigns are going to be hit. I did notice that CMON offered less plasticrack in their recent Massive Darkness campaign, and entirely guess that they're reserving funds for higher tariffs. I'm still buying discounted games retail on Amazon.

Of course, the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea jacked up shipping costs worldwide. This isn't just fuel costs, but insurance. I suppose if you haven't noticed the damage of the Houthis, or inflation from 2020-24 (USA) or recessions (eg. France and Germany), these tariffs may be overblown. Already, some countries have agreed to reduce their tariffs, rather than retaliate. I doubt tariffs will cause as much damage as Covid did, particularly to shipping, and US news never talks about the impact of the Ukraine war on US prices, though I'm sure EU has been affected.

The real short-term impact of Trump's tariffs is uncertainty. Like shipping under Covid, businesses can't plan ahead when they don't know what costs are. This delays capital and other long-term expenditures. Delays in businesses can be costly. Many suppliers reported an increase in demand recently, which obviously will result in a demand slump once tariffs go into effect. While obviously not translating directly into increased tariff costs for consumers, this short-term damage to businesses has costs, nonetheless. Even if tariffs increase domestic production, this production won't happen overnight.

https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/how-houthi-attacks-red-sea-threaten-global-shipping
https://www.statista.com/topics/6139/covid-19-impact-on-the-global-economy/

Then there's 3D printing. IIRC, Resin and the printers are from China, but you obviously save money on shipping and don't pay for physical miniatures. Two of my KS campaigns crashed and burned, leaving me with .stl's I essentially paid $500 for, so I have a head start in what to print if I get to that point. I'd much rather have tariffs and inflation, though.

I estimate I have 15K+ of unpainted miniatures and 10+ years of boardgames I still have yet to play, not to mention all that digital content (videogames as well) that's on my hard drive and interwebs. Crowdfunding projects I'm interested in seemed to be drying up since Covid, and Amazon and OLGS's don't seem to have jacked up prices in anticipation of tariffs. Of course, when USA did have rising inflation (what cost $4 in 2020 cost $5 in 2024), retailers ate cost until they couldn't, and prices went up all at once. I suppose some genius will tell us how to use egg shells from the eggs that have finally dropped in price as resin to 3D print more miniatures I have to paint.

China is 54% now. They increased it by the 20%.

As for what I'm doing. likely to just stop buying things. I have enough to last me for years and see no reason to spend on a hobby with such economic uncertainty.

An Australia perspective: Not an issue

Warmachine is printing their minis in multiple countries around the world and otherwise is online for rules/apps etc

Atomic Mass Games is interesting.
Made in China, based in US, I am in Australia. So I assume that if our order goes to Australia direct from China, it doesn't affect us. If China to US and then sent to Australia - significant mark-up

For GW we get our minis direct from the UK and now the US gets to enjoy the 'Australian/New Zealand Tax' that we have been paying on GW product for the last 30 years.
I had heard GW was building a factory (It feels like for years) in the US purely for the US market but their website doesn't differentiate between manufacturing and distribution for Nottingham, Memphis and Sydney, and we do not make models in Sydney....

The tariffs have no immediate effect on my wargaming purchases, but my understanding is that they (and the inevitable retaliatory tariffs) will have the effect of jacking up prices across the board.

Well of course, unless it's a game & miniatures made in the US the prices will go up.

But even in those cases the companies will use the tariffs as an excuse and raise prices, because that's what they do (see what happened during Covid).

Factor in also that you'll have less money for leisure activities because everything else is going to cost more (this applies to us all, globally, the markets are only just opening in Asia and are already in freefall).

I suspect 3D printing is going to get much more popular. In the meantime, stock up on those future hobby projects right now, buy from eBay before the prices start to go up.

Well, GW does have its US factory. What its capacity is, I dunno. Nor whether it can source the raw materials from US suppliers. Nor do we know how feasible it might be for GW to “simply” increase its range and capacity. Certainly the company has the money to do that, but there is, naturally, a good deal more to it than that.

But all those manufacturers who get it made in China might be in for a rough time.

The de minimis is scrapped for China and Hong Kong goods only, right?

 Andrew Rae wrote:
The de minimis is scrapped for China and Hong Kong goods only, right?

Honestly dude? I’d seek qualified advice on that as a small manufacturer.

I bought a replica Audrey II from Australia this month, and got scunnered for around £80.00 import fees on it, taking my total spend to around £400.00. I was happy enough and more than able to pay it. But not everyone will be.

So defo worth seeking proper, genuinely qualified advice.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Honestly dude? I’d seek qualified advice on that as a small manufacturer.

I bought a replica Audrey II from Australia this month, and got scunnered for around £80.00 import fees on it, taking my total spend to around £400.00. I was happy enough and more than able to pay it. But not everyone will be.

So defo worth seeking proper, genuinely qualified advice.

You're in the UK though, aren't you? I'm asking about the de minimus for imports into the US. It sucks but your example isn't really relevant

Anyway, I've read that the de minimus is scrapped for Chinese and Hong Kong goods, but I've not seen any mention of a total scrapping as the OP suggests.

Anything the Rest Of World used to buy from America will just have to come from China now, as most have been doing for a long time anyway.
If the USA wants to isolate itself from the world, the world will obviously respond, and there is a lot of 'world' to trade with.

Wargames-wise, GW manufactures in the UK, but where is the plastic and resin sourced from? We know (do we?) that their cardboard and packaging for books, cards and boxes is from China.
Other games companies seem to be mostly shipped from China too.

3D printing? I have bought from Prusa, manufactured in Prague, Czech Republic. As the internet tells me though, "You're still supporting China with a Prusa purchase", for the parts.

So, if the USA wants to buffer itself away, China will benefit. The RoW will just plod along with little difference, but anything from the USA, we'll have to pay more for. We'll find out just how much of that we do as we go along. Customs checkpoints are going to get very busy while this trade war goes on, so delivery times are going to be hit.

 Andrew Rae wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Honestly dude? I’d seek qualified advice on that as a small manufacturer.

I bought a replica Audrey II from Australia this month, and got scunnered for around £80.00 import fees on it, taking my total spend to around £400.00. I was happy enough and more than able to pay it. But not everyone will be.

So defo worth seeking proper, genuinely qualified advice.

You're in the UK though, aren't you? I'm asking about the de minimus for imports into the US. It sucks but your example isn't really relevant

Anyway, I've read that the de minimus is scrapped for Chinese and Hong Kong goods, but I've not seen any mention of a total scrapping as the OP suggests.

Didn’t frame it right. Unexpected Customs Charges Suck.

Your gorgeous models are sold in small quantities, so almost certainly I’d say as de minimus. So, whether or not it’s been scrapped for the UK, I’m arguing you’ll need proper, qualified advice on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Anything the Rest Of World used to buy from America will just have to come from China now, as most have been doing for a long time anyway.
If the USA wants to isolate itself from the world, the world will obviously respond, and there is a lot of 'world' to trade with.

Wargames-wise, GW manufactures in the UK, but where is the plastic and resin sourced from? We know (do we?) that their cardboard and packaging for books, cards and boxes is from China.
Other games companies seem to be mostly shipped from China too.

3D printing? I have bought from Prusa, manufactured in Prague, Czech Republic. As the internet tells me though, "You're still supporting China with a Prusa purchase", for the parts.

So, if the USA wants to buffer itself away, China will benefit. The RoW will just plod along with little difference, but anything from the USA, we'll have to pay more for. We'll find out just how much of that we do as we go along. Customs checkpoints are going to get very busy while this trade war goes on, so delivery times are going to be hit.

I’m not sure it’s that straight forward.

I sometimes buy MTG, and more often buy Hasbro Star Wars figures.

Both are US companies, both have production done overseas. What I don’t know is where their distribution is. Is it Ordered From US, Made in China, Shipped to and Warehoused in the US, then shipped wherever it needs to go? Either physically or by quirk of odd legality stuff?

I ask, not as snark, but because I genuinely do not know.

Good luck to everybody.

EU will be lagging behind on the bullgak a bit but rest assured we will catch up in even stupider ways.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Didn’t frame it right. Unexpected Customs Charges Suck.

Your gorgeous models are sold in small quantities, so almost certainly I’d say as de minimus. So, whether or not it’s been scrapped for the UK, I’m arguing you’ll need proper, qualified advice on.

I assure you, I do not take all my international trade info from wargames forums

I was just round about suggesting that the OP might contain some incorrect info

Not talking about the political and economic consequences and thinking on wargaming alone... I stopped dealing and buying anything American many years ago, it was already shipping prohibitive and customs would sometimes take a big slice. My wargaming is 100% not US I'm afraid.

I can see the rest of the world isolating US and strengthen themselves between each other by finding different routes and alternative production sites etc... Its bad for everyone.

I’m off to New York end of the month.

Looks like I got my spending dollars a wee bit too early!

 NAVARRO wrote:
I stopped dealing and buying anything American many years ago, it was already shipping prohibitive and customs would sometimes take a big slice. My wargaming is 100% not US I'm afraid.

I'm not ordering from the US either, but tariffs are going to affect prices in local shops too - Malifaux, Warmachine, Star Wars, Fallout, Battletech, Blood&Plunder, Wargames Atlantic, etc

 Andrew Rae wrote:


I was just round about suggesting that the OP might contain some incorrect info

Entirely possible.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/trump-considering-revoking-tariff-exemptions-cheap-shipments-china-source-says-2025-04-02/

Imported goods sent through the postal network and valued at or under $800 would now be subject to a duty rate of either 30% of their value or $25 per item, with that rate increasing to $50 per item after June 1.

Yep looks like the de minimus is ended only for PRC and Hong Kong, not Taiwan or rest of the world. It will still mean MASSIVE delays getting anything from China since customs does not have anywhere near enough people to police these packages.

 NAVARRO wrote:
Not talking about the political and economic consequences and thinking on wargaming alone... I stopped dealing and buying anything American many years ago, it was already shipping prohibitive and customs would sometimes take a big slice. My wargaming is 100% not US I'm afraid.

I think that's the same for most of us in the UK and probably Europe at large. The shipping costs are prohibitive from the US, so I don't get anything direct.

I was never into privateer press and the only magic the gathering cards I've purchased in the last 20 something years are the 40k commander sets. I don't actually know what other tabletop games companies are based in the USA.

With little known about retaliatory tariffs, I think the more troubling aspect of this from a gaming perspective is what it might do to the companies that sell into the USA. GW might have capacity to build or expand local production, or it might simply hurt margins. There aren't many companies (inside or outside of gaming) that are going to be able to move production to the USA for changes that may last days, weeks, months or until elections in a few years. If there's a sharp spike in inflation in the USA, it may not even be worth obtaining local production if demand drops due to squeezed wallets.

For me, the 10% tariff on GW stuff that I will likely have to pay won't be a breaking point. But my other hobby is model building. The US loooong ago conceded in that hobby to overseas manufacturers. When good quality kits from Japan began to flood into the US in the mid to late '70s & '80s, the writing was on the wall. By the '90s the industry was starting to be replaced by Chinese companies. Now, China is a juggernaut in the modeling word. Of the kits I currently have in-progress, 9 out of 21 are made in China, a pretty significant number. Of those not made in China, one is from S Korea, 4 from Japan, 2 from Russia, with perhaps 2 that were technically made in the US...some 30 years ago. I expect the model RR crowd is also not especially happy about these developments. Those kits that were a reasonable $50 from China, will now be a painful $75, without any increase in quality, utility, or improvement.

But even if it is "Made in USA," a lot of it depends on China. IIRC Reaper's forays into plastics & non-metal products, depended a lot on what China could deliver, not the least of which is cutting molds. I wouldn't be surprised if other domestic US kit & gaming manufacturers also source tooling from China, even if the injection molding is done domestically.

In the end, prices will only go up, & it is doubtful we'll see a surge of domestic gaming (or kit manufacturers) surge in response to this.

Damon

I'm pretty much like a lot of people, haven't bought anything from the USA directly for years and even limited my purchases in the FLGS that were from US companies.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
I stopped dealing and buying anything American many years ago, it was already shipping prohibitive and customs would sometimes take a big slice. My wargaming is 100% not US I'm afraid.

I'm not ordering from the US either, but tariffs are going to affect prices in local shops too - Malifaux, Warmachine, Star Wars, Fallout, Battletech, Blood&Plunder, Wargames Atlantic, etc

Like I said I dont collect none of those US products. After covid and with Brexit the UK scenario changed dramatically... We dont see much of that at Salute anymore, not in the quantities we were used to see before covid. We also been noticing a relevant decrease of Foreign representatives games and minis, both US and EU at Salute.

The shipping overall has gotten rather high and unreliable. As much as I would like to support certain companies products I opted not to and we are seeing less of it. Tariffs will not make it any better.

Shipping is bonkers even before the tariffs. After the pandemic a single book can be $60 to ship from the US to the UK.

Now up till now regular retail bulk shipping did mean that we could get those same books without any "shipping cost" at retail outlets; at least for those publications which can make it that far. Any smaller time publications or limited print runs are out.


Model buying is the same - single or few packages becomes quickly unaffordable to buy one-offs. What we might see are smaller studios in the miniature world teaming up to try and cover each other.

I've already seen diferent firms in the 3D print world sharing resources - and covering different regions production for each other so they don't have to ship across the sea. Similarly some are helping out with things like the EU "must have a local rep for your products" legislation.

So what we might see are big stores like Wayland, Element, Firestorm and such becoming even more critical hubs for smaller firms to ship through. Though far as I'm aware its really only the likes of Amazon and Ebay that have proper international big trading that can be tapped into.

UK is at least lucky we've a good few home-grown game firms to support and keep variety ;but yeah its going to be a challenge for sure and - like everything else these days - up goes the prices; down goes the spending.

The way you guys talk about this, I'd say you're all very, VERY, lucky, but not for long.

As for us in the states, we will easily see much less product for even Catalyst, Wyrd, CMON and Reaper. The fact that Wizards has a factory in Japan proves that this will affect ALL forms of gaming.

For the people saying GW has the Memphis plant, last I heard, that shut down 15 or so years ago and is just a warehouse now.

US GW fans, prepare for your price rise to cover the tariff costs.

In all seriousness though, i would expect the situation to change in the next few weeks/months. Presumably the US will change or scrap tariffs for some goods from some countries if trade deals are made and the US gains tariff free access to some foreign markets.

Mod edit - no politics please

It'll be interesting times. MTG, IIRC, is printed in three places: Japan, Belgium, and USA (Texas). While we don't see the Belgian printings here in the US, we do see the Japanese printings when a new set is launched as the Texas printers can't print enough to meet the initial demand. So how will Hasbro handle this?

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
It'll be interesting times. MTG, IIRC, is printed in three places: Japan, Belgium, and USA (Texas). While we don't see the Belgian printings here in the US, we do see the Japanese printings when a new set is launched as the Texas printers can't print enough to meet the initial demand. So how will Hasbro handle this?

Like everyone else. Increase the price, obviously.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
I stopped dealing and buying anything American many years ago, it was already shipping prohibitive and customs would sometimes take a big slice. My wargaming is 100% not US I'm afraid.

I'm not ordering from the US either, but tariffs are going to affect prices in local shops too - Malifaux, Warmachine, Star Wars, Fallout, Battletech, Blood&Plunder, Wargames Atlantic, etc

Definitely for Warmachine, as pretty much all printer resin is manufactured in China or Taiwan. I'd guess by more than the new tariff amount as well, as so far all my suppliers seem to have been eating the previous tariff costs. Harder to do that when they're stacking on top of each other like this.