Games Workshop’s current problems began in 2023 when their messy sales strategy fractured the Warhammer hobby. Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening now.
Updated on September 28th, 2025, by Rob Baer with the YouTube video version.
Feeling like the local game store shelves have been a little… empty lately? You’re not imagining it. Games Workshop’s been tripping over its own plastic sprues since 2023, splitting its player base, botching stock levels, and leaving 40k kits harder to find than a balanced codex.
Between Age of Sigmar players eyeing The Old World’s square bases and Horus Heresy models getting shoved into “Legends” limbo, it’s been one misstep after another.
So, what exactly went wrong? And why do stores, players, and whole communities feel like they’ve been caught in the crossfire?
Let’s break down how GW’s ambitious plans turned into a self-inflicted headache, why Age of Sigmar, Horus Heresy, and Old World are now fighting over the same audience, and how 40k ended up short-stocked and underserved.
If you care about where your plastic crack comes from, this is one story you’ll want to stick around for.
Side Games Take a Hit
2023 was not a great year for Games Workshop. Not financially speaking, they’re still turning a wild profit, but from a player and hobbyist perspective, things started to feel off.
Now, stores are reporting slow sales for Age of Sigmar, The Old World, and the Horus Heresy… and there are some pretty glaring reasons for all three systems at once.
It starts with what GW may have thought was a good idea: split their audience to make more money.
Horus Heresy: A Game “in-between”?
When the updated Horus Heresy line launched, it looked promising. Fancy books, sleek new models, and that retro-Imperial feel a lot of folks were nostalgic for. The problem? They cut it off from the 40k ecosystem.
Models that used to cross over (and did at the launch of 2nd edition) got shoved into Legends, meaning they were no longer legal in competitive 40k.
Players who used to buy Heresy kits as a way to build cool-looking 40k armies suddenly had no reason to touch the line. That’s a marketing misfire (not to mention Heresy Thursday being shut down), plain and simple.
What once was a crossover success became a silo. The Heresy crowd is still around, sure, but let’s be real, it’s a niche scene compared to 40k. And don’t even get us started about the recently announced Legion imperialist combat forces, which are a huge fail in our opinion.
Age of Sigmar and Old World: Cannibalizing Your Own Audience
Then came the Old World reboot, which seemed like a nostalgic love letter to the past. And hey, people did come back… from Age of Sigmar.
That’s the catch. Instead of growing the fantasy side of the hobby, GW just shifted its player base around like pieces on a chessboard.
A lot of AoS players who had settled into their Stormcast or Nighthaunt groove suddenly got a taste of square bases and ranked blocks again. For many, it was like slipping on an old boot. But it doesn’t look to have brought in fresh blood.
It just divided the player base that was already there.
Now, both AoS and Old World are smaller ponds with the same fish swimming in circles. Not exactly the growth strategy shareholders dream of.
Underproducing 40k: The One Job GW Actually Has
While all this was going on, 40k, the franchise juggernaut, was left in a strange state. Big releases came out with lots of fanfare… and then vanished. Allocation issues, understocked kits, and pre-orders that felt more like a raffle than a retail experience became the norm.
This wasn’t by accident. The CEO flat-out said in 2023 that they planned to keep selling out. Scarcity, in theory, creates hype.
In practice? It frustrates stores, alienates players, and pushes people toward third-party resellers or 3D printing.
And while all of that might have been manageable in isolation, combine it with the Heresy legends situation and the AoS/Old World split, and you’ve got a pattern.
Games Workshop has made some very spicy decisions, spread itself thin, ignored its largest base, and under-delivered where it mattered most.
Final Thoughts on the Current Games Workshop Problems
Here’s the thing: none of this means GW is doomed. They’re still the biggest player in the tabletop space by a country mile, and growing every day. But if you’re running a game store or just trying to keep a scene alive, you’ve probably felt the pinch.
The solution isn’t complicated, but it does require some course correction:
- Bring back some crossover play between systems. Let those beautiful Heresy models do double duty again.
- Stop cannibalizing player bases. AoS and Old World can both exist, but not if they’re fighting over the same people.
- Produce enough product to meet demand. It’s not complicated. If people want plastic, give them plastic.
And maybe, just maybe, listen to the folks who actually buy the stuff. The community isn’t short on feedback, and let’s face it, they’ve been right more often than not.
Sigh…
GW’s current behavior is not new and current predictions of doom are echoes of those made (repeatedly) before. However, I do think one very important thing has changed. The market environment they are in.
Instead of looking at game system, I think it more useful to consider the market segments GW has. Segment 1 – long time fanatics. I’m in this group (so are you). These are the buyers who are addicted (not a bad word) to what GW sells because they love the fluff. Segment 2 – Competitive. These aren’t fanatics because it isn’t GWs world that they are addicted to. However, they do really love to play the game. Segment 3 – Licensing and casual. These people aren’t that into any GW product as a tabletop system. They may like the world, but they like it through the lens of something other than tabletop or it may simply be one of many games they play.
The problem is how these segments each buy product. Business reality – GW needs to move product and that basically means NEW product.
Segment 1 will likely buy anything in the area they like, and they tend to like space marines (but not always). They may very well play multiple systems (or at least buy them) and buy lots of other products like novels and T-shirts. These are the cosplayers and those at big events showing off the GW brand. They are the core that everyone sees. In many respects, they are GW’s free marketing arm. They are great because they are fanatics, they are bad because they are the “for gamers” in the second half of the tag-phrase and (as such) they muck with GWs stuff and they are expensive to cater too. They write fluff (and articles, and host webpages of news content). They also have old stuff that they want to play with and you have to have staff write rules for (that Section 2 below doesn’t care about). Section 1 is expensive to supply to, so while they buy well, they also cost a lot to keep happy.
Segment 2 is the money. To stay competitive they have to buy new stuff (and they sell their old). They play the latest, hotest codex, they have to buy GW minis, and they don’t muck around (convert) their models. They are loyal to GW simply because of GWs size. Because GW is the biggest fish, they are the easiest to be involved with competitively. As such, they are exactly what GW wants to cater to. They only play with legal, current models. Thunderhawk? You must be kidding, it isn’t legal in my 2000 point “must win” list.
Segment 3 is more money, but it isn’t really for the core game. They place Space Marine II because its a great first person shooter, but they aren’t going to put paint on plastic anytime in the near future. People forget that members of this segment are bad at using core product. If they do buy it (and then sell it on ebay when they realize they don’t care to build it), they only buy some. Segment 3 is great for the business bottom line becuase it’s a group you can’t otherwise sell to, but it has no staying power and no loyalty (which both the other two have in spades).
To put this a different way, if a person in each segment has $100 to spend.
Segment 1: Buys $100 of miniatures ($50 from ebay from the dude in Segment 2) lovingly paints them and they won’t part with them,
Segment 2. Bought $100 of new miniatures, sold them for $50 when the new codex came out and bought $50 of new miniatures. Repeat.
Segment 3. Bought a GW licensed video game, bought $20 of miniatures, they are half assembled and in a box in the attic. Bought a new controller for their X-box.
The money here is segment 2 (GW makes $50 off segment 1, $150 off segment 2, and $20 off segment 3). However, Segment 1 is what makes the other two viable. GW actually makes the game for Segment 2. They make all their support stuff (e.g. White Dwarf) for Segment 1 which is expensive and only partially reimbursed by segment 1 purchases. Segment 3 is frosting. It’s great (and they want it) but it really doesn’t care.
What happened (Space Marine II) is that Segment 3 got a lot bigger. That’s just pure profit. Great for shareholders. However, what is also happening is an alienation of Segment 1. A lot of what you talk about above (e.g. Legends issues) alienates Section 1, Section 2 doesn’t care about this, but they do care IF they can’t get product or get games and that requires Section 1 to stay loyal.
This arrangement happened before (2005-10ish). Great sales to segment 3 (Dawn of War) means GW alienated Segment 1 (Internet sales limitations +). When segment 3 lost interest (as they will do) GW tried to bring back Segment 1 (poorly because they didn’t really understand Segment 1 since they always marketed to segment 2) and inadvertently alienated segment 2 (5th Edition). They pulled out of it because the competition that could have taken GW out (looking at you Privateer and Battlefront – among others) went after segment 2 first (hey that’s the money) instead of segment 1 (marketing drives sales guys – B school 101).
Right now GW is starting to cater to segment 3 and is beginning to alienate segment 1 based on a similar fact situation. They can still pull out (and they have more runway to do so than in 2005), but there is an important change. 3D printing means that Segment 1 doesn’t have to look to a competitor to come for them, they can become that competitor by simply catering to themselves.
At this point Games Workship has become a powder keg that’s about to blow in how they interact with their fanbase.
Demands fan take down fan works regardless of it promoting the fanchise and making it as popular as it became.
Starts playing gender politics and destroys lore for the sake of pandering to normies who never actually cared for the franchise. Every franchise needs believability and female custodes or space marines would be beyond believable.
Defends their staff demanding murder on some people in the fanbase thinking we are stupid that suspended means fired for screaming people he doesn’t agree with need to be murdered.
The scarce supply is no different on how Nintendo another company that reviles its fanbase does shows they care for the money and not the fans that drive the franchises.
The whole Games Workshop fanbase at the moment can be summed up pretty easily in two groups.
First group demands fake inclusion but actually just wanna doctrine how the franchise should be run with constant crying for inclusion and other BS. not to mention that this group demands GW only serve their people and agenda and reject all other players.
Second group feels it should just stay as it was and the Warhammer Universe just gets developed in a believable way with no changes to the lore. But it seems GW already alienated this group for the sake of the first.
Seeing as the first group has already destroyed GW slogan as being for everybody by playing politics. The second group already stopped caring for the franchise or went into 3D printing.
Making scarce and selling out doesn’t always mean your on top. Eventually the craze from the Warhammer video games will die down. especially when you take into account that gaming itself is invested with the same political disease as GW itself is.
Eventually it will tank in the sense that minor stores like in my country can sell it at the lowest price while GW has scammer style prices in their stores.
Combat patrol box by Games workshop = 130 euro Smaller store = 104 euro
Not to mention they might be on top, but they only selling out real quick because of the games hype, in reality it’ll die down and a lot of people will lose interest.