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You're right, and I had made a point that the 1st half of GW's financial year when HH 3.0 came out was better than the 2nd half of GW's financial year when a REAL WAR that raised everyone's costs so they're probably buying less Warhammer in general. So that indicator is at least probably a little bit skewed. Since it was 10 years ago, I had been re-reading GW's full-year financial report when AoS 1.0 came out. It had a line that AoS at least did better than Warhammer Fantasy Battle...said in a way like "it's better than a poke in the eye." It was the most lukewarm praise, especially ever year since then has been gangbusters. Finally, ppl could've bought HH 3.0 miniatures for use in 40k. The same could be said for HH 2.0 and 1.0 though. Regardless, HH 3.0 was definitely not the standout this fiscal year.

You're right and I want to make it 100% clear we're in agreement, none of what we're saying contradict each other, and... ...neither does GW disagree. They're telling us they paid tariffs, reclaimed partially, BUT the situation continues to go back & forth. What TV says in the UK and everywhere is generally that the US Supreme Court stuck down the tariffs because the proper legislative PROCESS wasn't followed. An US president has the authourity to regulate imports/exports in an emergency. The Supreme Court said it's NOT an emergency, that tariffs are a tax. Then, the power of the purse goes to their legislative branch or Congress. Tariffs themselves aren't illegal, it's that the proper process wasn't followed...so go back and do it right next time. It's like there was a FAQ to a previous Balance Update that changed things back. All I was saying was 2 things, still relevant: Before, GW acted in accordance with the tariffs Rules As Written, planning products & pricing as such Now, GW still sincerely believes that tariff will return, properly implementing that same nerf, sticking to the same plan So they're continuing that same plan with products & pricing. Having ALREADY implemented it, I don't believe another major pricing update without a new triggering event like petrol supply...ehhh, which will probably happen sooner or later, ugh, but it's like their ideas for more modular products will be an ongoing thing. The only possible daylight between us is that UK TV is saying like, "Case Closed!" GW and I are saying, "Case Ongoing."

Thanks for bringing this up, I've been thinking about this, too. It relates to a broader issue I've been finding out last year or two. Brother Dark Horse's point is, from 2016 to 2026, GW overall grew 5x to 6x times. There is ONE Black Library line item WITHIN the Trade channel (i.e. 3rd parties, like Amazon, etc.) We're using it as a gauge; you guys rightly showed me in past years it is just Black Library sales via Trade, NOT like if you bought it at a Warhammer Store. It's a useful gauge to see if Black Library's speed matches the rest of GW. It doesn't. Rest of GW grew 5x to 6x, BL hasn't even 2x in a decade. The upside/good news is that 2026 was actually a bit of a spike...which I would attribute again to Space Marine II that Amazon anthology episode. It's like that source of revenue growth in the Trade channel also relates to the Black Library. Like I played the video game, watched an episode...maybe I'll buy a book to learn more. there's this weird economy within The Hobby going on. LoreTubers AND like we in the B&C Age of Darkness and Black Library subforums, some Redditors maybe, are the only people actually buying Black Library books...then EVERYONE else looks at their videos/posts. It's like Collectible Card Gamers have a 2ndary fan trade market. I believe GW sees Black Library just as a marketing tool, so it's not worried about the money per se...but still consider this weird. MEANWHILE, you guys know Marvel and DC? Marvel and DC are huge, the biggest news in Hollywood is which A-list actor signed up to play which Marvel hero, with the previous person that played him being interviewed, what's this Marvel movie's gross vs. that DC film, etc. But...they're comic book companies, how're comic books doing? Marvel and DC comics SEEM like a duopoly, a 2-company market...they're actually a monopoly under their distributor, Diamond Distributors. ONE company controls BOTH Marvel's and DC's comics and collectible figures, etc. If you're a comic book shop, you DON'T deal with Marvel or DC, you only deal with Diamond. (Personal note - so I was working in Big Tech. My comic book shop's owners recognise me, they actually use our company's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, because Diamond does, so they pulled me aside for tech help. It turns out Diamond uses an old legacy version of our software that we don't even support anymore.) Despite Marvel and DC becoming a dominant force in Hollywood/media/pop culture, Diamond went bankrupt in January 2025. Nobody new wants to read. People experience superheroes through films, not books. And Warhammer through LoreTube, not books. Talking to newer, younger Hobbyists, to whom I'm grateful to because THEY're the ones teaching me, so I'm not mocking them...they don't read books. They expect nothing to be longer than a Wiki article. One praised me as a "reader", like a special subculture, just as being called a "gamer" used to be a thing. There's also been this change in the very methodology used to teach literacy in certain education systems...and it did NOT work out. I've been fascinated by this. My thought is GW should make Collectible Cards, not of a game, but of Horus Heresy lore, excerpts from BL books.

Final Analysis I thought I knew the answer, but had asked around to double-check. Executive Summary: I'm convinced what we're seeing is evidence of the video game Space Marine II's popularity translating to the tabletop The U.S. tariffs has changed not only GW pricing, but their products themselves, both recently and going into the future I will conclude with my thoughts about GW's arc over the last few decades, because I believe the next decade will be different. The Other Side of the Coin Thanks for reminding me, because this exercise made me see how mainstream media saw GW, and the gap in their understanding: I don't like platitudes like "corporations maximise profit" BECAUSE it ends a dialogue before the important bit: follow the money. I've been seeing how mainstream media has been covering GW, now a FTSE 100 or top tier British company, record high revenue but flat profits. However, those same outlets JUST LAST YEAR were talking about record profits correctly because of Space Marine II, which brought in unprecedented royalties for 6 to 7 million COPIES. These mainstream media outlets forgot there was no Space Marine III this year. GW actually wrote a reminder in LAST year's report: So mainstream media is saying record high revenue but flat profits...because there was no repeat of Space Marine II. The other side of that same coin is even without Space Marine II, GW maintained that record level of revenue and profit. (I'm not saying mainstream media is lying or evil. I AM saying they don't try to understand, to push news out faster.) Now, unless you're a GW shareholder, you don't really care about that. What I care about is The Hobby. Let's follow the money: Yes, Trade is Friendly Local Gaming Stores, Retail is Warhammer Stores, Online is warhammer.com, licensing is like video games. So FLGSs grew so much it dwarfed the vacuum left from having no Space Marine III. How big was it? £63.1 million. Is £63.1 million a lot? Well, remember back to 8th ed's release. That was the beginning of the Primaris. Everyone was buying new Space Marines armies, but what's more, Warhammer friends I had not seen for 10 years were coming back to The Hobby. It was the biggest growth in GW's history at that point. How does it compare? The year of the Primaris, across FLGSs, new Warhammer Stores, warhammer.com, etc., grew £61.8 million, LESS than this year's FLGS's growth alone. Sure, everything else this year was flat, but it's like you take the coin of the record year of licensing revenue from Space Marine II, flip it to the other side, into FLGS revenue, with more lustre. Following the money, finding where it came from, it leads to the next obvious question, how? How did FLGSs grow so much? A Phone Call From a Dead Man Perhaps you've seen this horror story. You get a phone call/message in the morning, a friend WhatsApp'd you to avoid the shortcut to work because of a traffic accident. So you take the long route, when you arrive safely, your co-workers tell you a fatal accident JUST happened...but also that friend that warned you had died LAST NIGHT. That plot twist was what I felt when I had read this from the Half-Yearly Report (and this was what I confirmed this week): The way the Half-Yearly Report sounded was the telesales team of the Trade/FLGS channel had some awesome update, like a new telemarketing script, new leads to cold call, maybe a charismatic coach flying around the world teaching GW's Trade reps how to sell better. Instead, they mentioned Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur. I'm IN Hong Kong. I KNOW the Hong Kong Trade rep, and how valuable he is. He used Contrast paints to get Hong Kong model kit shops that sell Gundam to carry some Easy-To-Builds like, "Sell Ultramarine Contrast for this mini I painted for your own demos...then your own Gundam markers for the yellow trim." See the salesmanship he had? He had this spiel how Warhammer is complementary to Gundam, not competitive. He'd likely sell Contrast for Gundam Assemble, but... ...here's the plot twist. This Hong Kong Trade rep and his Malaysian colleague in Kuala Lumpur were let go from GW. It was not their fault, no problem or performance issue, it was just a regional re-organisation, and their jobs were folded into the Singaporean office. A guy in Singapore isn't flying over here to demo Contrast paint. When I read this, it was like receiving a telemarketing phone call from a dead man. Telesales service would've gone DOWN, NOT up. (I do not think the report lied. I DO think it's a "we thank our EX-colleagues for their contributions, growing our sales 25.2% this year as they embark on the next exciting chapter of their careers OUTSIDE our company." In my professional life, I've had co-workers not realising they were on such an adventure until they were told so by email.) Like I said, I know the value of at least the Hong Kong Trade rep, which I assume is shared across GW global...but it's NOT the driver here. A More Reasonable Explanation A more reasonable explanation than a phone call from a dead man is Space Marine II players showing up at FLGSs. Just imagine being an Asian model shop owner OR a U.S. baseball card shop that also sells Magic: the Gathering. Space Marine II players that finished the single-player campaign started showing up asking for Warhammer and you're like, "Sorry, but we only have Gundam/M:tG Commander Decks, and they have a 40k version!" These are customers with ready money and you're sending them OUT of your own store, empty-handed...for months. However, the NEXT time a GW Trade rep calls, you'd be like, "Hey! I've been meaning to talk to you..." I did Enterprise Sales, and I would ask the Retail Team to take my dumb ass to "walk their beat." Like they'd tour their partners' shops in malls and high streets and I'd beg them to take me with. I learned retail is both very risk averse yet always chasing the latest fad in this desperate attempt to stay relevant in an online world. Retailers want The Next Big Thing, yet also want confirmation it WILL be a Big Thing, so there's no Next, only Now. And the flaw with this roleplay exercise is it was a small increase in new Trade partners, so probably existing ones just bought more. So I do think it's a general mainstreaming of Warhammer, yes from Space Marine II, but also that 1 episode from the Amazon anthology series. That trend is the salesmanship that convinces retailers. The case is not closed. For example, Sell-In into a retailer's shop is NOT Sell-Through to the end user. We'll see next year. Last year, I tried to quantify how much Space Marine II expanded The Hobby. Turns out it just took time, not mathemagic. Tariffs Are the Biggest Nerf GW Faced This section is shorter yet MUCH MORE significant, because I can illustrate my point well here. Consider recently: New Drop Pod that NO ONE asked for Repackaged Baneblade that our astute Brothers and Sisters caught They ruined Agrax Earthshade, I can tell you that 1st hand, I'm still miffed A smaller...cheaper...edition of Necromunda than expected Keep an eye out on similar changes in the future Before going further, I thank Brother Alfred not just for what he said, but the way he said it, as a reminder to us all: He's talking about the OFFICE, not the person, nor the politics. We at B&C steer clear of politics...even as politics drive AT us. Yes, I asked Copilot AI to create the following illustration, I'm a heretech, bad Techpriest, but to make my point: These are ACTUAL figures from the Half-Yearly Report, laid out to resemble a Balance Updates' Munitorum Field Manual. As Warhammer players, you should have a visceral reaction, so that you understand how GW is reacting, even if you think they're making a mistake. US tariffs are the biggest points increase GW has ever faced. As a manufacturer, GW cares (imho more than they probably should) about the "core" (i.e. their own products, not video games by 3rd parties) gross margin, like what it costs to make a miniature. GW looks at these costs like we do at the points of units in our armies. Point increases suck, but we eat them, to keep things legal. So does GW. Reminder that you've probably heard tariffs described by cable news pundits as a sales tax. Technically, that's mistaken. Tariffs are charged on goods passing "over the (guard) rails" of a ship onto just a US dock, way before a customer even sees it in a shop. That timing makes it a cost on the product itself, like an extra shipping cost. Traditionally, you see increase in costs in fractions of a percent, like 0.1%, 0.2%, etc. The tariff is 10% that affects GW's US market, which turns out to be 18%, for a 1.8% tariff. It's like a key unit in your army go up HUNDREDS OF POINTS. You gotta keep that model, so you're scrounging up any points you can from the rest of your list. Such a nerf means any upgrade for your HQs, you're taking off. The max-sized unit he's buffing, because you want the most value, you're reducing by a few models. In fact, you're cutting ALL units you have to make up the difference, everything is scaled down...and you know you're losing more efficiencies than points you're saving. Tariff is not just about profit. It's like a pound of flesh payment where you calculate how many fingers you can cut off to still call your hand a hand. (I say that because a streamer in a game I play has a disability where he only plays with 1 hand, yet he just reached a 10,000 subscriber milestone. Winner.) That's what's happening with GW and their products right now. They're forced into these unhelpful cuts, like cutting out sprues or plastic where the Drop Pod still resembles a Drop Pod, a new edition of Necromunda without the famous multi-story terrain, and Agrax Earthshade is...brown water. My secret sauce turned into sewage. That tariff WAS overturned, but GW believes is its sudden yet inevitable return; they mentioned they do NOT consider it to be an "exceptional" i.e. one-off. That belief is reasonable because the US is not out to tariff the UK per se, it's worldwide, to prevent countries it's targeting like China to "transship" through the UK, etc. I remain optimistic of the good news of no more pricing updates until another shock, like oil runs out needed for plastic and electricity to melt them, the bad news is it's because GW already charged us for the pricing updates while modifying their products...and I'm sure more shocks will happen sooner or later. In the meantime, I expect new products to be not exactly smaller, but more modular, like the new Necromunda is Necromunda: Skirmish. Lighter products so they don't put all the eggs in a single big basket that they have to pay tariffs on, things a bit more piecemeal so GW can send it over to the US in a more Made To Order format. Not Going To Talk About Factory Four Not going to talk about Factory Four, for a happy reason. I used to go off on this, and I'm no longer worried about it. It's been about a decade of growth, a 2nd Renaissance for GW, from after Age of Sigmar released its General Handbook that made the game viable and the introduction of Primaris to now. Before that, GW hovered at £120 million with 3 factories. A decade later, about FIVE times the revenue at £666.9 million...but with the SAME 3 factories. The real stat isn't how many factories there are, it's GW's property, plant and equipment, which includes all sorts of stuff such as plastic mould injection machines. You can tell from this table in my spreadsheet GW didn't really add to it until 2018, after 40k 8th ed's launch. Now they're at about FOUR times and adding more. I don't know exactly how they're stuffing all those machines into the same 3 factories, I imagine it looks like a MC Escher painting in there, but it's good! Conclusion: Prediction For the Next Decade I know a McKinsey consultant-turned conglomerate CEO who's a history PhD, "Don't give me a snapshot, I want to see the trend." Thus, I shall end with how I started, this graph, to show how I'm already seeing a trend in the next phase of GW: GW was founded in 1975, and when it had a "management buyout" and became a publicly listed company in 1992, we got access to its records where we can track its progress. It's like every decade since, GW goes into a new phase. I'm describing them after the fact, but it goes something like this: 1992-2004: Golden Age, because the 40k logo was literally gold. 2nd ed starter box set made 40k much more accessible than 1st ed, where it's like White Dwarf articles later collected into books. It peaked with a COMBINATION of the Lord of the Rings games bringing new customers as well as 40k's height with the Eye of Terror campaign. 2004-2016: Dozen Years of Decline, the peak lured GW into a false sense of success, they expanded too fast, leading to a LOSS year in 2007. Cost-cutting measures like one-man Warhammer Stores began. Sales/profits look flat like that's ok, but remember prices were going up; The Hobby was slowly bleeding out. 2017-2024: GW Renaissance, I use that term not because it's fancy, but because it's a literal rebirth where GW looked into its past to win back "lapsed" customers. It wasn't simply Warhammer Fantasy was reborn as Age of Sigmar, but the return of Blood Bowl, Necromunda, etc. The sheer drive to return to a Golden Age made it such. Oh, don't worry, what comes next is not an Age of Darkness, just Something Different, and I think it started LAST year with Space Marine II. Up until now, the successes AND failures of GW were largely INTERNAL. 2nd ed 40k, they knew 1st ed Rogue Trader was really hard to get into, invest in a starter box, make neat Codices around armies, try different things, keep what works. Even during bad times, GW cut its own costs, until its resurgence with more streamlined rules in 8th, etc. Now, the biggest factors that influence seem increasingly EXTERNAL. How well did Space Marine II do? Space Marine I was good, but did not have as large an impact. It's not Warhammer+ but an Amazon anthology series that seem to reach a mass audience. It's not Horus Heresy novels, but LoreTubers talking about them that people hear. Before it was Rick Priestley and Rest In Power, John Blanche that lead to Warhammer's rise, going forward it'll be a celebrity like Henry Cavill and YouTubers like Asmongold who just bought a Nurgle army that determine Warhammer's future, maybe. Like the Master of Mankind, I can see the island, I just don't know how we get there. Don't react too badly to this change, because I know how much we hate change. The only thing we hate more than change is the way things are. And of course, please, continue the discussion. Even I'm not so sure on all this, I'm just seeing the trend. But you guys see what I see, right?

I saw what I posted above, and the ONLY difference is, even better than a Crusader with Heavy Bolter and Turret build, is my Sororitas DLC with a Flamer (maybe it was a Heavy Flamer). Though lacking heavy armour, she has this temporary Faith force field thing and she can cling her Flamer onto the Vehicles that's the bane of every build and just burn them over time. Put another way, the Crusader with Heavy Bolter and Turret is a heavyweight, but the Sororitas punches WAY ABOVE her weight, and I like her more now.

Perfect timing, was just going to add a thing. GW does not break down revenue by product, only by sales channels, regions, etc. However, we can tell by another measure: timing. We know when 40k editions came out. Every time, it's a vertical line from the period before. The exception was the year before, an AoS year...which was also when Space Marine II came out. Though not a 40k year, it kinda became one. Back to HH 3.0. The 1st Half Year core revenue (i.e. GW's own stuff, not including royalties from video games) which goes to the end Nov, GW made £316.1m. So you know how GW always launches in the summer? This 1st Half is always a pretty good tell on whatever the launch product that year performed. 2nd Half, which includes Christmas and the Maelstrom campaign and the new Red Corsairs, went up to £626.8, which is only an extra £310.7...or it's a WEAKER 2nd Half. That rarely happens. So to HH 3.0's credit, it did pretty decent OR AT LEAST BETTER than what came out during the Christmas time and beyond.

I do think HH 2.0 got a clearer sales bump than HH 3.0, but mainly because the year before 2.0 was not exceptional...I mean that both in hyperbolically and technically, like Space Marine II was an exception, a one-time event. 40k is the clear leader, AoS is the 2nd as it is their fantasy line, while HH remains the little brother, so the differences between 2.0 and 3.0 are fuzzier. Nono, there's no fault here, because we think we're ultimately agreed. Like nothing significant, nothing stand out, neither good NOR bad, like it just is. That's what the sales figures suggested. Put another way, the wave of popularity from video games or Amazon episodes probably had more impact than HH. Actually, that in itself may be an issue, like things outside GW influence Warhammer than what GW can do internally. Ah, that's a conversation for elsewhere. Back on topic, I've got to get the Zone Mortalis book, amirite!? And finish my Loyalist Luna Wolves.

Nothing spectacular is exactly right, and it's after a spectacular year last year when Space Marine II came out that they even had a Titus-themed starter set...and of course a new AoS with the popular Spearhead mode came out. So keeping pace and not dragging things down is already quite an achievement. I had this handy so I'll post it here: Trade means FLGS Retail means Warhammer Stores Online means warhammer.com Compared to last year, Trade i.e. FLGSs grew especially fast, THAT's the real hero this year. If 30k was the real hero, you'd see that same growth everywhere, because all these sales channels are selling the same products. Instead, outside of Trade, growth is just in-line with pricing updates/inflation. The ONLY nitipicky negative is everyone expects Warhammer to be constantly spectacular now. You guys know what I mean. Hype is the 1st step towards disappointment.

Spot on, exactly the glitches in the Matrix that I, too, look for. It's very counter-intuitive, isn't it? Turns out there's a completely logical reason, and it's not like the high cost of IT in general. Here is a classic chart...because they don't share details on this anymore: It's from 2021. 2022 and onwards, they stopped having a full breakdown, so I literally can't make this again. What I want to illustrate is the bit that includes all the miniatures, from design to manufacture, is called Design to Manufacture (literal name they used back then). It's only 2% of GW's operating expenses or, simply put, running costs. To compare, Trade, Retail and Online, or FLGS telesales, Warhammer Stores and warhammer.com, is 9% + 47% + 7%...more than 60%, way more than half...is basically like their selling costs, ya? We veterans' action is: buy models. GW's action is: sell, not models, but the whole Hobby. THAT's actually their main job. Lots of talk about Warhammer on Amazon, etc., if we were to think of GW as an actor, he'd not be a great actor, his acting'd be very basic, he's got like 2 emotions: grim & dark, but he'd be great at selling a movie, he'd be an action star that people would just to pay to see or something, looks great in power armour or whatever. Brother Flaherty, £20+ mil of IT costs, I can tell you just under £10- mil of that is for Online/warhammmer.com, one of GW's sales channels, and I bet a lot of the rest of the IT costs is for online systems for Trade/FLGSs and Retail/Warhammer Stores. Now, if GW was spending that much on Microsoft Copilot for Office 365, that'd be a waste. But if I were to tell you they spent more on Warhammer Stores worldwide than Warhammer Studios, I'm guessing you...wouldn't really like it, but it'd make sense to you. Instead of Warhammer Stores, I'm telling you it's for the whole world wide web for FLGS and online customers, too, you STILL may not like, but it'd totally make sense. And telling people what they don't really like but makes total sense is actually pretty much my job. But very well done spotting this weird quirk. (Their Group Finance Director, the CFO, actually said "I don't know much about AI." Good, because clearly no one does.)

I expected GW's Full-Year Financial Report to come out later this week, they released it the NEXT day. Gimme a break, GW. +++ 1st Impressions: TOP-LINE RESULTS +++ Core revenue means GW's own stuff: miniatures, games, paints, etc. Licensing revenue means royalties from video games...like SPACE MARINE II (I colour-coded it to be like a Balance Dataslate, because it's actually really efficient.) BOTH of the following are true. 1st, it IS another GW peak. 2nd, it is ALSO a slight plateauing off from an exceptional year. Last year was the release of the video game Space Marine II. Give you a comparison. Street Fighter 6 sold 7 million copies. It's about to take centre-stage in the Esports World Cup tomorrow. A film with DC/WWE/podcast stars is coming. Space Marine II sold almost double that, now at 12 million units. Space Marine II didn't just bring licensing revenue (which is awesome because it's like Mortal Wounds; there's no costs like there's no cover saves, it goes through as sheer profit like sheer damage), but it unlocked a new wave of 1st time Hobbyists; they've heard of 40k, but now want to act on it. It really wasn't going to repeat until maybe a Space Marine III. I hope but am unsure it can repeat even with Total War:hammer 40k tbh. +++ 1st Impressions: Growth In the Same Place, Just Less So +++ In my initial post, I mentioned 30k wasn't as much as hero as FLGSs/3rd parties, known as "Trade", at +25.2%. That Trade channel dropped to 17.2% stretched out the whole year. The other "Channels" (GW's own) also fell. Question for you guys pls: what happened in the 2nd half of the year? Starting December to May. Did we all wait for 11th ed? +++ 1st Impressions: Pricing Update Red Flag Lowered...for NOW +++ Good news is there probably won't be another pricing update this year. Bad news is it's 'cos they ALREADY overcharged/over-cut corners. TL;DR is - GW operated as if the U.S. tariffs were real and adjusted their business to fit. Even though they got overturned, they think they'll be back. GW hovers at a core gross margin of 70%: $100's worth of minis/paints/books in a haul averages out to costing GW $30 to make. They fight hard for each FRACTION of a percent, have like 10 annual projects that shave off like 0.1% each...which gets cancelled out by like a 1% increase in Covid-related costs. U.S. tariffs are 10% for U.K. goods. We found they're about 18% of GW's sales. That's the 1.8% in the initial post, from their Half-Year results in JANUARY 2026. Because tariffs are charged "over the rails" (actually a technical term, like the ship's railing so you don't fall over). For a company that is sweating every 0.1% here, 0.1% there, overnight they hard to deal with a 1.8% change. GW was already planning things like its pricing updates, shown here as the 0.2% "price rises", that took effect in October 2025. This whopping change to cost of good sold is an unprecedented 1.6%. Cost of goods sold can EXACTLY be a downgraded Drop Pod and Baneblade with missing parts. I've only seen it at like 0.1% efficiency increases before. (Technically tariffs go into a cost of goods sold figure, but people can separate it out for clarity, they're not fudging numbers. It's not like Power Levels.) The U.S. Supreme Court "struck down" those U.S. tariffs in FEBRUARY 2026, but it's like GW was already planning around them. Had the U.S. Supreme Court NOT "struck down" those U.S. tariffs, that'd be 71.1% - 1.8% = 69.3%, a little bit lower than what they were last year. I lay this out before you hear some YouTuber say this is GW "greedflation". "Greedflation" WOULD be if GW dramatically increased prices over their costs. But they show they were technically targeting that 10% the U.S. government charge 18% of our Fraters, that the rest of us are fronting money to help. Warhammer example - the tariffs are like when a Balance Dataslate just screwed your army over by making your best unit go overpoints, so you try to cut almost EXACTLY the points from somewhere else so you can still play with a legal list, but it never quite equates...and you're waiting for the NEXT nerf. (And that's how I ended up with a Royal Warden as my HQ for my Triple C'tan list.) Btw, it's not like GW even has all the money back yet. There's a mechanism where you have to "sue" a specific U.S. department to stake your claim. Oh and if GW does another pricing update in lieu of this, and it's not, say, due to rising energy/oil-related byproducts like plastic, I WILL call greedflation. Now I go to bed! A bit angry!

Hey, this is another thing I learned from Timperial Guard, who had worked in plastic injection moulding. So GW miniatures are very detailed. He pointed out to capture that level of detail, they need some extra high-grade die-cast mold, something like that. Those last (effectively) forever, like to have that granularity of detail, you have to have a very strong mold. So yeah, they could keep churning out those models if they wanted to, they don't even wear down.

Oh man, you're right, I misread that totally, but now I'm also wondering how that 6%ish added would lead to a 25.2% increase, y'know? I know the guy who was the Trade Accounts guy in Hong Kong, one of the locales listed, but he left about a year or so ago. They seem to have a whole new, and I guess better, system.

1st Update: it came out maybe hours ago, I (and apparently Brother Waaagh)'ve been reading it since: https://assets.ctfassets.net/ost7hseic9hc/6nI9MLA7hoRBfs2OA1oE5R/5b0fef99d81995ba1cdf872887f6cbe6/Results_Statement_2025-26_FINAL_v2.pdf How time flies. We've broken down GW's financials for a decade now, when GW hockey-sticked up around 8th ed 40k's launch. As always, we enter with a mindset of "you oughta know where your food comes from" as a U.S. Midwestern farmer once told me. Keep in mind this report measures from the time of Horus Heresy 3.0 to JUST BEFORE 40k 11th ed. I haven't even played 11th ed yet. PREVIEW: we are using their last Half-Yearly Report as an indicator, I will ADD NEW POSTS once the Full-Year report comes out. +++ Preview: TOP-LINE RESULTS +++ You always hear about "the bottom line", meaning (operating) profit, because corporations "maximise profit," "line must go up," etc. While it's true the spice must flow because the economy is built on having some forward motion, "top-line", or revenue, is more interesting to us as a proxy to the popularity of The Hobby. It's a measure of people x how much they're willing to spend...because they have spent it, the ultimate test. We can preview the Full-Year results from the Half-Year results: Core revenue means GW's own stuff: miniatures, games, paints, etc. Licensing revenue means royalties from video games and JoyToys, etc., NOT GW's own stuff FORECAST: GW's Full Year revenue should be around £700 million, a bit more than 2x GW's Half Year, because there's always a Christmas bump. To compare, Magic: the Gathering annual revenue is $1.72 BILLION, almost double GW. WotC prints money, and props up all of its parent, Hasbro. Fun Fact: unless you get a Space Marine II or something, licensing revenue is consistently around 5% of GW's core revenue. It's like if The Hobby itself is in good shape, video game companies will license 40k. Here, the horse is leading the cart: if GW wants to grow its licensing revenue, they should focus on popularising its OWN offerings (by making better miniatures, games, stories, etc.), then the licensees will come. This year was a Horus Heresy launch year, so was HH 3.0 the "hero" that drove core revenue growth? Turns out it was something different... +++ Preview: Where Was the Growth, Pricing Update Red Flag +++ The following is from the Half-Year report, and it'll be interesting to see how much it'll change by Full-Year, will update: Trade means 3rd party sellers like Friendly Local Gaming Stores or non-GW online stores Retail means Warhammer Stores Online means GW's own online store So if it was a product (or general growth) that drove sales, you'd see the same growth across sales channels, because it's the same product everywhere. So if HH 3.0 was really that popular, you'd see it drive sales in Trade (like FLGSs), Retail (Warhammer Stores) and Online (warhammer.com) all around the same level. Instead, we saw Trade grow by +25% while only around 5% (basically just inflation) elsewhere. I expect an explanation from the Half-Year report: Welp, thank you for the explanation, Miss Group Financial Director! GW increased 3rd party Trade vendors BY 500 to 8,600 (thx Rusted Boltgun for correcting me), but now I wonder how does that about 6% increase translate to 25.2%? Like I guess existing trade outlets might be buying much more, but that seems off, doesn't it? I guess THIS is a factor of Warhammer's popularity from other sources, like Space Marine II or Amazon shows. Here it's a bit of the cart leading the horse. For those that said video games/streaming will drive The Hobby, it turns out the main thing they drove is 3rd parties to carry more Warhammer products. The thing we're watching for is the core gross margin. GW expects a core gross margin of 70%: you buy $100 of stuff, it cost GW $30 to make, $70 is profit. That's only for that box of miniatures, paints, etc., and would not include the costs of running the Warhammer Store you bought it from, etc. (and what that $70 pays for). Fun Fact: there's a Director in GW whose job is to keep the core gross margin at 70%...thus keeping prices low. That job sucks right now, because geopolitical events have driven costs up, from the the plastic that is an oil-related byproduct to the energy costs of melting said plastic into molds to form miniatures. Last year, I mentioned tariffs from the U.S. would be passed onto Hobbyists worldwide, as tariffs are paid when a product enters a country, before it's sold to the consumer. That decrease of -1.8% suggests the US market is about 18% of GW's business. (Bolt)gun to my head, I'd've estimated 20% before, as I knew North America was about about 40% overall, like US would be half of all NA. Turns out it's a little bit lower than that, which was interesting to me. The last pricing update came in October 2025, before the Half-Year report. How the core gross margin drops will be a red flag on how big a price hike to come. +++ Preview: Factory 4 and Why Change Drop Pods/Baneblade +++ The most confusing thing to me as of late is, why change the Drop Pod and, recently, the Baneblade. The Baneblade could be some shady profit motive, but why bother? It's not something everyone buys and what they did is take out certain weapon options to sell separately, so GW won't make much from that. The Drop Pod was the really confusing one and was a red flag...it's like they're just looking for ways to make them faster. A new cast for something like the Drop Pod isn't costless, it should be within £100,000, so it's like a hard-thought/fought decision. I think it's how GW production has trouble keeping up with demand. GW has kept its same 3 Factories...with improvements...but is producing 5x more product. The most precious resource in GW right now is time on the factory floor. GW hasn't really addressed it yet, and likely they'll spin it as increased efficiency, but I wanna know. +++ Preview: We Await the Full-Year Report +++ It should come with this week, maybe next week at the latest, because GW has increasingly more money to count. The main interesting thing is how licensed games like Space Marine II drove sales mainly by making 3rd party partners interested, and I expect that Half-Year's Trade's (i.e. FLGS) 25% growth to grow even more by the Full-Year. It's about growing The Hobby from the OUTside, not just upselling to existing players/painters. The bad thing is I expect GW's costs to have ballooned, just all of ours have, and they'll have to increase their own prices to keep up. So I'll be back in this thread, updating this post, reading your replies, later this week or early next...should be.

I just wanted to say this: the new Datasheet matches how Titus plays in the video games. Like remember how the the game mechanics in the video games with the Chainsword is it creates these temporary hitpoints that replenishes with each attack, so you just jump into a mob and start mashing that attack button come what may, and you're probably better off than any other tactic. That was my entire strat with the co-op horde mode until the final round. I remember at the time that Titus is like some kinda Khorne Berserker, and now he has 8 attacks like Eightbound. That cracks me up.

I always, always, ALWAYS lose my GW coins. I'm not a disorganised person. Sure, I leave some bitz in my workstation area, I don't organise my paints in alphabetical order because it shakes out the paints I use most just come to the front, but somehow those Flavour of the Month coins always disappear on me. ESPECIALLY the ones I really meant to safeguard and keep somewhere I'll never lose it. I think I have some sort of curse with these fake coins that have no legal tender. P.S. The pins stay with me. I keep them in this little velvet bag. Like I got these AoS badges. Those I can't seem to get rid of.