5 ms·

> Games Workshop brings in > 0.5 billion in revenue (!!) I had no idea that Warhammer was such a huge industry - they must sell almost 600 sets a quarter.

gmueckl 1y ago
This is either a joke that flies over my head or there are a few zeroes missing. Which is it?
- miningape 1y ago
  Look up the price of a single small unpainted figure. You'll be shocked.
- smadge 1y ago
  The joke is that Warhammer sets are expensive.
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    I'm kinda surprised people aren't just buying a 3D printer. I print stuff all the time. I'm not into this kind of game but if I were I wouldn't pay that much for a piece of plastic I can print at home for 3 bucks.
    - dharmab 1y ago
      My group is 3D printing most of our stuff for beer and pretzels games. But official tournaments have a rule where your miniatures have to be official products. Note that a standard printer won't be anywhere near as nice quality as official models. You need a resin printer for that, which requires ventilation, some basic PPE, and additional labor to clean and cure the prints correctly. Not something you want to do with small children or pets in the house. We resin print most of our models. We use FDM for blocky things like tanks and buildings, though. And some complex or very large models can't be printed (although we sometimes use alternatives for those). Warhammer is an unusually expensive game, too. Other games like One Page Rules will sell you STLs to self-print, or charge very reasonable prices for pro-printed minis. You can buy a 2-player starter kit for OPR for about the same money as one WH40K unit.
      - wkat4242 1y ago
        Yes I know, resin printing is not great, I don't like it myself either. But FDM printing has gotten a lot better, especially with the bambulab material switcher where you can use water-dissolvable support material. But cool to hear you're printing them. I can imagine they don't want to allow it at official tournament to protect the golden goose :)
        dharmab 1y ago
        Yeah, we have a couple of Bambus, but the detail on these miniatures is physically smaller than the extruder. So print resolution holds us back a bit.
        wkat4242 1y ago
        Even with the 0.2mm nozzle? With that you can go pretty detailed because the maximum it can do with that is 0.1mm (how they pull that off with a 0.2mm nozzle I don't know, but all their nozzles do half the nozzle size in layer height). Of course it's not the resolution of a good laser resin printer but resin is also much more expensive and it's a PITA to work with as discussed here.
        dharmab 1y ago
        Works fine for a tank, but something like Imperial Guardsman, Sisters of Battle or a Necron Tomb Blade all have features that are too small for FDM. Look up the "Celestine the Living Saint" model - the entire sculpt is small enough to fit inside your hand. The extra cost of resin is negligible at this scale, it's mostly the safety requirements and extra labor that makes it harder.
        wkat4242 1y ago
        Ahhh yes ok I didn't realise that. I'm not into this kind of game at all but a friend who was into it showed me his big flying tanks so I thought they were all that big.
    - Symbiote 1y ago
      I've FDM printed models for friends, and the quality isn't there. It's not good enough to spend the time carefully painting it. It's fine as a token for the game, but people enjoy the painting etc too. A resin printer isn't safe for use in an apartment, otherwise that would probably be more common.
      - throwaway2037 1y ago
        I just Googled for "resin printer at home". There are loads of Reddit discussions and YouTube videos about it. Yes, precautions and a careful setup are required, but "isn't safe" does not look true anymore.
        Mashimo 1y ago
        It's possible, you have to put in some effort. Active ventilation to outside, working with PPE on, washing in isopropyl alcohol, curing with UV light. At least that is what I would do in smaller apartments.
        Symbiote 1y ago
        * Avoid placing a 3D printer over carpeted areas That rules out most apartments in countries like the USA and UK. * Do not locate dedicated work/personal spaces in close proximity to the printers if odors are a concern That rules out all small apartments, where there isn't a room that can be dedicated to the printer. * 3D Printers and uncured, open resin vats should be stored and operated in a well ventilated area or with local exhaust That rules out all apartments in northern countries (like here in Denmark) with lots of insulation https://radtech.org/safe-handling-of-3d-printing-resins/ https://radtech.org/safe-handling-of-3d-printing-resins/
        Mashimo 1y ago
        I live in northern county and can vent my 3d printers exhaust to the outside. Friend of mine from CPH did the same with his resin printer. And if you actively went it outside carpet and close proximity should ok ok'ish health wise. It's just effort and noise that a lot of people don't like to put in.
    - mapt 1y ago
      Resin prints are production quality, but a messy/toxic process. We need a resin printer tuned for mass production of tiny pieces, just like belt FDM printers are tuned for mass production. FDM prints are either slow or have obvious layer lines or both. If you're painting it maybe that doesn't matter.
      - wkat4242 1y ago
        Resin is also slow (probably slower per mm^3 than FDM depending on nozzle size), but speed doesn't really matter IMO. But yeah with a high detail 0.2mm nozzle (0.1mm extrusions size) it does tend to get pretty slow. Layer lines are a factor of orientation a lot (you want to have steep angles, not very shallow ones). I have several printers and I ususually have something "in the oven" while I WFH (my job is not related to 3D printing sadly)
        mrWiz 1y ago
        One advantage of resin is that it takes a fixed amount of time per layer no matter the size of the layer. FDM time obviously increases linearly depending on the amount of material to deposit. So a resin printer will take the same amount of time to produce a single figure or as many figures will fit into its print area.
      - mapt 1y ago
        Additionally: If you want to _mass_ mass produce these things, an injection molding setup is going to be your goal. You can sort of hack one together for plastic molding using a pneumatic/hydraulic cylinder and some mold plates that are either cast metal (lost-PLA, lost-wax), cured plaster, or CNC'd. The stuff that will give you five million units a day costs as much as a house, but there is a middle ground that is competitive with FDM on quality but significantly faster for more like $300-$3000. The limitation with injection molding is typically the cost and complexity of having mold plates made when you don't have a demand for all that many units.
    - butlike 1y ago
      My friend did this with a pretty large amount of success. You can find prefabs online and even designs for mini warhammer models to save space/mats.
- xmprt 1y ago
  Warhammer is expensive
- Symbiote 1y ago
  It's priced in a similar way to Lego.
  - stevage 1y ago
    I don't find Lego especially expensive. And Lego is way more difficult to manufacture, has very exacting functional requirements and extremely good QA.
    - iamacyborg 1y ago
      I don’t know a great deal about injection moulding but I’d assume GW kits are more detailed than lego, having seen some sprues. The stuff they’re putting out these days is really quite good.
    - Symbiote 1y ago
      I bought a Warhammer set during Covid and was amazed at the detail, compared to the 1990s stuff I had as a kid. I can't say what's more difficult to manufacture - millions of identical bricks that snap together, or a huge range of different, detailed designs which fit snugly together but don't lock. Just the first thing on the home page: https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/Deathlords-Mortarchs-Mannfred https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/Deathlords-Mortarchs-Ma...
      - stevage 1y ago
        > millions of identical bricks Clearly you are not aware of the extraordinary range of Lego pieces.
        Symbiote 1y ago
        Proportionate to the size of each company and the amount of toys they produce, I'll bet there's significantly more variety in Warhammer. Just from a quick search, within a year Games Workshop offer about 3000 different model kits, each of which will contain ~1-4 unique moulded sprues. There seem to be at least 50 new kits each year, possibly 100, otherwise what's available rotates around the older kits. Lego have produced about 15,000 different sets since 1950, and a huge number of the parts are shared between sets. (That's the whole point of the toy, no?)
- jay_kyburz 1y ago
  It's a very expensive hobby. My kids are not allowed to look at the models in the window in case they get any ideas.
- dharmab 1y ago
  A single Warhammer plastic miniature around the size of a child's toy car, unassembled and unpainted, can cost around $30.
blacklion 1y ago
I've read, that now GW have more than 50% of revenue from licensing IP, not selling books & plastic.
- iamacyborg 1y ago
  Licensing is about 10%, nowhere near 50. https://assets.ctfassets.net/ost7hseic9hc/1alE9DriNd0GJq1SYKn3ZY/e14d3ff03635ea919c569f075b25c60a/2024-25_half_year_report_final.pdf https://assets.ctfassets.net/ost7hseic9hc/1alE9DriNd0GJq1SYK...
  - blacklion 1y ago
    Oh, thank you, I should not trust videobloggers when it is possible to check primary documentation.
    - iamacyborg 1y ago
      Other interesting bit, they now have recurring revenue from 207k subs

gmueckl 1y ago

This is either a joke that flies over my head or there are a few zeroes missing. Which is it?

miningape 1y ago
Look up the price of a single small unpainted figure. You'll be shocked.
smadge 1y ago
The joke is that Warhammer sets are expensive.
- wkat4242 1y ago
  I'm kinda surprised people aren't just buying a 3D printer. I print stuff all the time. I'm not into this kind of game but if I were I wouldn't pay that much for a piece of plastic I can print at home for 3 bucks.
  - dharmab 1y ago
    My group is 3D printing most of our stuff for beer and pretzels games. But official tournaments have a rule where your miniatures have to be official products. Note that a standard printer won't be anywhere near as nice quality as official models. You need a resin printer for that, which requires ventilation, some basic PPE, and additional labor to clean and cure the prints correctly. Not something you want to do with small children or pets in the house. We resin print most of our models. We use FDM for blocky things like tanks and buildings, though. And some complex or very large models can't be printed (although we sometimes use alternatives for those). Warhammer is an unusually expensive game, too. Other games like One Page Rules will sell you STLs to self-print, or charge very reasonable prices for pro-printed minis. You can buy a 2-player starter kit for OPR for about the same money as one WH40K unit.
    - wkat4242 1y ago
      Yes I know, resin printing is not great, I don't like it myself either. But FDM printing has gotten a lot better, especially with the bambulab material switcher where you can use water-dissolvable support material. But cool to hear you're printing them. I can imagine they don't want to allow it at official tournament to protect the golden goose :)
      - dharmab 1y ago
        Yeah, we have a couple of Bambus, but the detail on these miniatures is physically smaller than the extruder. So print resolution holds us back a bit.
        wkat4242 1y ago
        Even with the 0.2mm nozzle? With that you can go pretty detailed because the maximum it can do with that is 0.1mm (how they pull that off with a 0.2mm nozzle I don't know, but all their nozzles do half the nozzle size in layer height). Of course it's not the resolution of a good laser resin printer but resin is also much more expensive and it's a PITA to work with as discussed here.
        dharmab 1y ago
        Works fine for a tank, but something like Imperial Guardsman, Sisters of Battle or a Necron Tomb Blade all have features that are too small for FDM. Look up the "Celestine the Living Saint" model - the entire sculpt is small enough to fit inside your hand. The extra cost of resin is negligible at this scale, it's mostly the safety requirements and extra labor that makes it harder.
        wkat4242 1y ago
        Ahhh yes ok I didn't realise that. I'm not into this kind of game at all but a friend who was into it showed me his big flying tanks so I thought they were all that big.
  - Symbiote 1y ago
    I've FDM printed models for friends, and the quality isn't there. It's not good enough to spend the time carefully painting it. It's fine as a token for the game, but people enjoy the painting etc too. A resin printer isn't safe for use in an apartment, otherwise that would probably be more common.
    - throwaway2037 1y ago
      I just Googled for "resin printer at home". There are loads of Reddit discussions and YouTube videos about it. Yes, precautions and a careful setup are required, but "isn't safe" does not look true anymore.
      - Mashimo 1y ago
        It's possible, you have to put in some effort. Active ventilation to outside, working with PPE on, washing in isopropyl alcohol, curing with UV light. At least that is what I would do in smaller apartments.
        Symbiote 1y ago
        * Avoid placing a 3D printer over carpeted areas That rules out most apartments in countries like the USA and UK. * Do not locate dedicated work/personal spaces in close proximity to the printers if odors are a concern That rules out all small apartments, where there isn't a room that can be dedicated to the printer. * 3D Printers and uncured, open resin vats should be stored and operated in a well ventilated area or with local exhaust That rules out all apartments in northern countries (like here in Denmark) with lots of insulation https://radtech.org/safe-handling-of-3d-printing-resins/ https://radtech.org/safe-handling-of-3d-printing-resins/
        Mashimo 1y ago
        I live in northern county and can vent my 3d printers exhaust to the outside. Friend of mine from CPH did the same with his resin printer. And if you actively went it outside carpet and close proximity should ok ok'ish health wise. It's just effort and noise that a lot of people don't like to put in.
  - mapt 1y ago
    Resin prints are production quality, but a messy/toxic process. We need a resin printer tuned for mass production of tiny pieces, just like belt FDM printers are tuned for mass production. FDM prints are either slow or have obvious layer lines or both. If you're painting it maybe that doesn't matter.
    - wkat4242 1y ago
      Resin is also slow (probably slower per mm^3 than FDM depending on nozzle size), but speed doesn't really matter IMO. But yeah with a high detail 0.2mm nozzle (0.1mm extrusions size) it does tend to get pretty slow. Layer lines are a factor of orientation a lot (you want to have steep angles, not very shallow ones). I have several printers and I ususually have something "in the oven" while I WFH (my job is not related to 3D printing sadly)
      - mrWiz 1y ago
        One advantage of resin is that it takes a fixed amount of time per layer no matter the size of the layer. FDM time obviously increases linearly depending on the amount of material to deposit. So a resin printer will take the same amount of time to produce a single figure or as many figures will fit into its print area.
    - mapt 1y ago
      Additionally: If you want to _mass_ mass produce these things, an injection molding setup is going to be your goal. You can sort of hack one together for plastic molding using a pneumatic/hydraulic cylinder and some mold plates that are either cast metal (lost-PLA, lost-wax), cured plaster, or CNC'd. The stuff that will give you five million units a day costs as much as a house, but there is a middle ground that is competitive with FDM on quality but significantly faster for more like $300-$3000. The limitation with injection molding is typically the cost and complexity of having mold plates made when you don't have a demand for all that many units.
  - butlike 1y ago
    My friend did this with a pretty large amount of success. You can find prefabs online and even designs for mini warhammer models to save space/mats.
xmprt 1y ago
Warhammer is expensive
Symbiote 1y ago
It's priced in a similar way to Lego.
- stevage 1y ago
  I don't find Lego especially expensive. And Lego is way more difficult to manufacture, has very exacting functional requirements and extremely good QA.
  - iamacyborg 1y ago
    I don’t know a great deal about injection moulding but I’d assume GW kits are more detailed than lego, having seen some sprues. The stuff they’re putting out these days is really quite good.
  - Symbiote 1y ago
    I bought a Warhammer set during Covid and was amazed at the detail, compared to the 1990s stuff I had as a kid. I can't say what's more difficult to manufacture - millions of identical bricks that snap together, or a huge range of different, detailed designs which fit snugly together but don't lock. Just the first thing on the home page: https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/Deathlords-Mortarchs-Mannfred https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/Deathlords-Mortarchs-Ma...
    - stevage 1y ago
      > millions of identical bricks Clearly you are not aware of the extraordinary range of Lego pieces.
      - Symbiote 1y ago
        Proportionate to the size of each company and the amount of toys they produce, I'll bet there's significantly more variety in Warhammer. Just from a quick search, within a year Games Workshop offer about 3000 different model kits, each of which will contain ~1-4 unique moulded sprues. There seem to be at least 50 new kits each year, possibly 100, otherwise what's available rotates around the older kits. Lego have produced about 15,000 different sets since 1950, and a huge number of the parts are shared between sets. (That's the whole point of the toy, no?)
jay_kyburz 1y ago
It's a very expensive hobby. My kids are not allowed to look at the models in the window in case they get any ideas.
dharmab 1y ago
A single Warhammer plastic miniature around the size of a child's toy car, unassembled and unpainted, can cost around $30.

blacklion 1y ago

I've read, that now GW have more than 50% of revenue from licensing IP, not selling books & plastic.

iamacyborg 1y ago
Licensing is about 10%, nowhere near 50. https://assets.ctfassets.net/ost7hseic9hc/1alE9DriNd0GJq1SYKn3ZY/e14d3ff03635ea919c569f075b25c60a/2024-25_half_year_report_final.pdf https://assets.ctfassets.net/ost7hseic9hc/1alE9DriNd0GJq1SYK...
- blacklion 1y ago
  Oh, thank you, I should not trust videobloggers when it is possible to check primary documentation.
  - iamacyborg 1y ago
    Other interesting bit, they now have recurring revenue from 207k subs