Here’s the latest on Games Workshop’s worldwide Warhammer crackdown affecting 280 sellers, frozen bank accounts, and sales platforms.
Updated on May 23rd, 2025, by Rob Baer with the latest update from sellers, and Games Workshop.
If you’ve checked your favorite online marketplace lately and noticed a few listings mysteriously vanish, you’re not imagining things. Games Workshop just dropped the legal equivalent of an orbital bombardment—suing 280 sellers across the globe and freezing their assets in one sweeping move.
We’re talking shut-down stores, locked accounts, and some very panicked vendors. Some were clearly pushing counterfeit kits, while others got hit for less obvious reasons, like using the word Citadel in a brush holder listing.
Let’s break down who got caught in the blast radius, the backtracking, why it matters, and what this means for the rest of us trying to hobby in peace
GW Swings—Then Realizes It Hit the Wrong Targets
Games Workshop went full courtroom crusader on 280 sellers for allegedly infringing Warhammer trademarks—but turns out at least a dozen of them were totally innocent. Cue the awkward “oops” emails.
Yup, they froze accounts, locked up funds, and threw sellers into legal limbo… after forgetting actually to proofread their work. Then they quietly started backpedaling. If you were wrongly caught in the net, congrats—you might be getting dropped from the suit (and maybe a half-hearted apology to go with it).
Full story here if you want the legal drama in all its grimdark glory.
Will the Real Warhammer 40k Please Stand Up?
The creator behind No Guts No Galaxy (above) just got tangled in a lawsuit with Games Workshop. Not for printing shoulder pads. Not for bootlegging miniatures. No, no. For selling a magnet. A magnet.
Apparently, he used the word “Warhammer” in a product title for something completely unrelated to Warhammer 40K—specifically, it was about the BattleTech Warhammer mech. Different universe. Different style. Similar name. Big headache.
He didn’t even know he was being sued at first. That’s because GW hit him with what’s known as a Schedule A lawsuit—the kind where you find out you’re in trouble after the papers have already hit the judge’s desk and your PayPal account gets frozen faster than a cryo missile lock.
Enter the chaos: old partner spots a sketchy email, creator finds it buried in junk mail, then—surprise!—full-on court summons from Florida. Not exactly how most people plan their Monday.
The wild part? He wasn’t even named personally. Just his store’s URL. But that was enough to drag him into the mess. Cue panic, migraines, and a frantic search for a lawyer who doesn’t charge the GDP of a small nation.
How a Magnet Cost Him Thousands
Eventually, he found someone in Florida who had experience with this kind of thing (and with that law firm in particular). That lawyer got him dismissed from the case, but not before a hefty legal bill and a complete store shutdown just to play it safe.
He’s fine now—well, fine ish. Still can’t touch his PayPal funds for a few days, but the case is closed, the magnet’s off the shelves, and he’s breathing again.
What’s the takeaway here? Apparently, having “Warhammer” in your store description—even if it’s referencing a mech from a totally different franchise—can trigger an IP lawsuit from a multi-million-dollar company. And once the lawyers get involved, you’re playing with real money.
He’s setting up an LLC now (smart move) and warns everyone else in the hobby scene to do their homework, label carefully, and lawyer up if needed. Not exactly the fun part of the hobby, but definitely the part that’ll keep you out of courtroom dramas.
Sellers Warhammered By GW’s Legal Team Crackdown
According to our sources, a few sellers that were perhaps victims of Games Workshop’s overreach managed to wriggle out of the net — their complaints were quietly removed. Which is nice… but doesn’t exactly fix the mess for the other handful that were also unfairly targeted.
Since we first reported on this legal sweep, a dozen or so sellers have reached out to us, all saying the same thing: “We got hit too, and we’re not even sure why.”
Like in the Battletech video, some of them didn’t reply by the May 12th deadline — not out of defiance, but because they had no idea they were even on the hit list. No formal notice, no friendly email, just radio silence… until they saw their PayPal frozen and their listings wiped.
Some even only found out through community chats or Reddit threads.
Most have indicated that they have been asked to pay between $2000 and $10,000 in “damages” by the Brickell IP Group (after their assets are frozen, mind you). Some have even taken to Reddit to ask for legal advice.
May 12 Deadline:
What really stands out is the chaos behind the scenes. Sellers we spoke with said it sounded like there was a miscommunication between Games Workshop’s legal team and the third-party IP group they brought in to do the heavy lifting.
That might explain why some genuinely innocent shops may have ended up in the blast radius.
It’s the hobby-world equivalent of a fire-and-forget missile — great if you’re locking onto counterfeiters, less great if you just took out someone’s friendly bits store by mistake.
To us, this just seems like a lot of collateral damage —
Games FakeShop
As for the other 200-some sellers? The ones who didn’t reply at all to this complaint and were allegedly selling counterfeits, non-licensed goods, or were misrepresenting Games Workshop’s IP?
Well, your guess is as good as ours. Some might be on the run — digitally speaking — pulling listings, nuking accounts, hoping to ghost the system.
Others may just be done. Burned out, boxed up, and moving on. Either way, it’s a lot of silence from a big group that just got legally steamrolled, and that silence is loud.
Games Workshop Takes the Gloves Off
Quick Reference:
Case Title: Games Workshop Ltd. v. Schedule A Defendants
Court: U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida
Case No.: 25-cv-21746-ALTMAN
Judge: Hon. Roy K. Altman
TRO Date: April 22, 2025
Preliminary Injunction Hearing: May 27, 2025
Plaintiff: Games Workshop Ltd.
Defendants: 270+ online sellers (Schedule A)
What’s Going On?
If you’ve been around the Warhammer community for more than five minutes, you’ve probably seen bootleg minis, knockoff terrain, and some… highly suspicious Warhammer-branded marks (think things like the Space Wolves symbol). Well, Games Workshop clearly has too, and this time, they’re not just issuing polite warnings. They’ve gone full legal hammer.
The UK-based Warhammer giant is suing nearly 280 online sellers in one fell swoop. Why? Alleged counterfeits — lots of them. We’re talking fake minis, improperly branded merch, and shady listings pretending to be the real deal.
Legal claims in the mix:
- Trademark Infringement (Lanham Act §1114)
- False Designation of Origin (Lanham Act §1125(a))
- Relief under the All Writs Act (28 U.S.C. §1651(a))
Basically, the argument is that these sellers are trading off the Warhammer name without permission, using branding that looks official enough to fool shoppers.
The Nitty-Gritty Allegations
Here’s how it played out: GW (through their lawyers) supposedly did a sort of round of undercover test purchases. Those orders didn’t pass muster. They say the goods were fake, low quality, and designed to imitate official Warhammer products — logos, box art, product names, the whole kit.
That kind of thing can cost a company more than just a few sales. The bigger fear that GW is claiming is brand dilution — if people can’t trust the quality of what they’re buying, that hurts those involved in the legit hobby, from independent shops to the players themselves.
In an effort to keep sellers from bailing out, hiding assets, or wiping their shop pages, GW made sure no advance warning was given before a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) hit.
What the Court Did About It
On April 22, 2025, the court signed off on a TRO as part of the full complaint, and that’s when things got serious. Here’s what came down:
- Sales Freeze: Sellers had to stop selling anything infringing.
- Asset Freeze: Their financial accounts were locked.
- Expedited Discovery: Marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress were ordered to hand over seller details.
- Third-Party Compliance: Platforms had to freeze and disclose info on the accused sellers.
- Alternative Service: GW was allowed to notify defendants via email and Dropbox links. Yes, really.
- Bond Requirement: Games Workshop posted a bond of $10,000 per seller to cover potential damage if the court later finds they overreached. With 280 sellers, that’s potentially up to $2.8 million in bonds alone — not counting the legal bill.
If you’re thinking that’s a lot of legal firepower over some minis, well, you’re not wrong.
The Bigger Picture
This isn’t GW’s first rodeo, and it probably won’t be the last. These enforcement sweeps tend to focus on platforms like Alibaba, Etsy, eBay, AliExpress, and DHGate. And yes, most of the named sellers appear to be based in China and the UK.
We’re also seeing a familiar legal playbook here: file one mega-case with hundreds of defendants. It keeps costs down and pressure high, but it also means individual sellers can get steamrolled if they don’t know how to respond or can’t afford a lawyer.
It looks like GW is working with Brickell IP Group, a law firm that’s been attached to similar mass-defendant IP lawsuits. That move may also help GW dodge some of the community blowback by keeping their name a bit more out of the spotlight.
Is This Overkill?
Here’s where things get messy. A close look at the list of affected sellers shows most were, in fact, selling knockoffs or using the Warhammer trademarks without permission. But — and this is important — perhaps not all were.
A handful seem to have gotten caught up in the net unfairly:
- One seller was flagged over a gaming mat because the title mentioned Warhammer 40k.
- Another was penalized for a wooden brush holder described with the word Citadel.
- Some were tagged for using official logos in their store category page — not on products.
- At least a few listings seemed to be fulfilled through Shopify’s affiliate program (The Collective), meaning the entities named in the suit never even touched the goods.
That’s where the $10,000 bond per seller matters. If any of these claims are ruled excessive or unjustified, those funds could help cover damages to wrongly targeted sellers.
This part gives strong “Spots the Space Marine” vibes — you remember the infamous takedown campaign from a decade ago. Add in the recent YouTube copyright strikes, and you’ve got a pattern. Potential over-enforcement with a side of PR misfire.
Final Thoughts
Let’s be real: counterfeits do real damage to the hobby. If you’re printing knockoffs and slapping a GW logo on the box, you’re not the good guy in the story. But when enforcement gets sloppy — going after harmless hobbyists for naming conventions or a single category image — that’s a problem too, we think.
Games Workshop’s legal action is drawing a hard line. Whether it’s the right one, and whether they’ll keep the community on their side while doing it, is still an open question.
Latest GW Takedown of YouTube Creators
Hmmm. Maybe GW sell your crap at reasonable price and actually restock your crap And maybe you won’t as many try to profit of your crappy business practices. Just a thought.
Where do we find this list of affected sellers? Some random messaged me on Instagram claiming I was one of them but neglected to provide links or proof, and I haven’t heard anything from Games Workshop
email me your business name 🙂
They pulled all my ebay listing of stationforge minis because I used the warhammer category on ebay. Apparently they own the entire category and it you post in it it’s a trademark violation. GW doesn’t care about fair use, only power abuse.
Yes they did the same to me few years ago. They own the category, that’s how you keep 97% of a market against all anti trust law of the world…
Doing so you don’t need to improve the quality of your games and you can keep rising prices^^ The wonderfull GW world or how to kill a hobby.
They did this on the quiet side 20 or so years ago, it forced at least 6 game stores out of business, in three states. The diffrence now is is the speed of the internet, and that game shops talk more, and I think it as stupid now as it was then.
I operate a successful print business where I pay every designer and take care to not list anything that I think might be objectionable to GW. GW has still consistently shown that they are bad-faith actors who feel it is their right to issue takedowns of anything that even sniffs a space marine aesthetic. Their behavior, as my lawyers specializing in IP law put it, is “appalling”
I support any company’s right to protect their IP. But make no mistake, 90% of GW’s IP protecting activity is simply anti-competitive law-breaking.
Yeah like having more than 60% of illegal in EU (GW got 97%).
And 95% of their so called IP comes from other universes (Dune, Starship trooper, Lotr, Dune again, etc…).
Correction, in my previous post I said Armorcast made the resin “Gobsmasha” tank for the Orcs back in the ‘90’s…it was a company called Epicast. (My bad)
Bwahahaha—you mentioned “act of good faith” and GW in the same sentence! We long-in-the-tooth hobbyists have seen this from GW before. I agree, protect your IP as there’s far too many copycats and fakes out there. But would it hurt to actually mass produce product and work well with multi-channel distribution? Does everything have to be limited release? Ex. You can’t buy a Horus Heresy Series novel as they’re all out of print save the first few books. Print Second or third editions please. Or too many models that never made it to the table top in one game but did in another scale like in old Epic Space Marine —has there ever been a plastic Orc Gobsmasha kit*? If people can’t get what they want they’ll make it themselves (kitbash/3D print) or they’ll go somewhere else. Sadly I’m just not surprised here.
*Epic scale 6mm had the Gobsmasha tank in hot metal, ArmorCast made a resin version back in the ‘90’s under license from GW for the larger WH40k scaled game. No plastic kits as I recall.
Im proud owner of over 10,000 dollars worth of GW product. Thanks to 3d printing it only cost me 1k. The writing is on the wall.
I’m a loyal fan of games workshop and I love the style of there model’s and I would be Hart broken if I’m paying gw price’s and I’m getting counter fit goods so I think gw are doing the right thing I’ve even heard horror stories of people purchasing Warhammer stuff and the box has been re-sealed with empty sprues in the box and none of the bits are not left on them from seller’s on lagit selling site’s so I say if the sellers being sued haven’t done anything wrong then they have nothing to fear from this but if they are braking the law then they will be dealt with
I don’t see a problem with this. Thievery should be put through the wringer regardless. I’ve always loved GW since I’ve started playing.
They respond to their gamers like the next day…. even in video games. They’ve righted their wrongs like mis- marked packages. Messed up my order once and I went back the next day they gave me a set of lions (old school elven set) and some paints because they gave me the wrong elf. They were super awesome in every transaction. So I think the community should calm the hell down, they’re doing what’s best for their business which will reflect in prices and better quality products. It will also help us all make sure we have the official Warhammer 40k and not knock offs…
They’re suing the guy for selling a magnet for a figure called Warhammer, which he made before GW even existed. And he had to pay a thousand dollars to get out of that case. But yeah, GW didn’t do anything wrong… Next time, they should sue the creator of Dune for stealing his intellectual property 30 years before GW
stoleclaimed it…GW is suing people for selling paint pots, brushes, magnets, and items like cosplay which they do not sell and do not have copy right on just because the word warhammer is in the page… people can sell aftermarket parts for car brands they do not own, people can also sell brushes, bits, ect for use with warhammer so long as they dont clame to be GW’s brand.