The stat I found was 2950 employees world wide as of June 2024.

I used the numbers from their financial disclosure. I have no idea where the article got its information.

I got my information from the article so who knows lol

There are cheaper miniature games out there. Gaslands is Mad Max/ Death Race inspired and you use standard toy cars to play. There's also Turnip28 that's pretty much post apocalyptic Napoleonic Wars. There are cheap Napoleon era miniatures people modify for it, but I've also seen some goofier builds, like using toys and actual vegetables. I will say I haven't really played either, but they are the two miniature games I often consider getting into.

10k is just fine. 18k is better, but no one complains about 10k

For certain. I hope nobody thinks I'm dismissing this awesome move. I just wanted to know how much each individual got.

It's definitely pricey, a couple of reasons:

I believe the kits are still entirely made in the UK rather than Asia like so many things.

The quality and designs are arguably the best in the world with techniques far more advanced than most rivals can compete with.

This doesn't mean they don't get greedy and stick on a huge profit, I believe they heavily rely on staff who love the hobby to run their stores too and pay very poorly.

On the one hand, fuck GW, their plastic is too damn expensive for what it is.

On the other hand, respect for paying out profits to the employees. Mad respect, 100%. Wish more companies did that.

While that's great, it also speaks volumes when taken in context with their customer-hostile business practices.

They sell metric fucktons of $50+ boxes of $0.15 worth of plastic. And $20 bottles of paint. They should be able to throw their employees a generous bone.

If I were to play again, I'd find some drawn units, print them, laminate them, and stick them in the little circular stands with the slot. No way I'd spend that much money again, I barely broke even selling my old stuff.

Is it customer hostile? I thought it was just licencing-hostile, fucking over others with their IPS left and right.

I don't know much about them.

In the sense that you're going to overpay for editions and minis that they're constantly updating to squeeze more money out of you while having a genuinely good but expensive paint catalogue ruined by paint pots designed to waste paint, yes.

In the sense that it's pure entertainment and no one and nothing is making you buy them despite all that, no.

Now, if we want to talk about how they're essentially monetizing fascist rhetoric and the "satire" died decades ago that's a whole new ballgame.

I dunno if there is a subculture of printing the models at home. I would think resin printers would have more than enough resolution to make good miniatures. Is that frowned upon? There is no reason to buy overpriced licensed shit.

It is like risk but cooler! And honestly you don’t need a 2k point meta army to start with. For the price of two or three $60 video games (guess I have to preface that now) you can have enough models for you and a friend to have an absolute blast.

Oh there is absolutely a group that prints their own, and before that there were re-molds that were made based on the real ones.

From what I understand, (friends play) they aren't allowed in "official" sponsored matches, so if you really want to compete big you have to have real armies. But also they have printed one of those $800 models because most people don't have the cash to throw at stuff like that.

So I'm sure there are some diehard people that only think official models should be used but it doesn't seem common.

I'd like to know more about that last point.

In 40k, everyone is fascist. The Imperium worships a corpse who is gonna wake up from life support and save humanity any day now guys. Their creed is "suffer not the xenos, mutant, nor heretic to live".

Their main enemies are Chaos: nightmare demons and cultists worshipping evil gods spawned from the Imperium's own fascism.

The biggest threats on the horizon are the Tyranids, a ravenous swarm of bugs who want to eat the galaxy, and Necrons, a feudal empire who sold their souls for immortality while destroying the galaxy.

There are also the Drukhari, murder rape pirates who had such a big cocaine orgy they tore a hole in the galaxy, and Orks, fungal football hooligans whose only purpose in life is to get into a good fight.

The only "good guys" are the Eldar of the Craftworlds, who are arrogant communists with a birth rate issue, and the Tau: a Marxist-Leninist Federation of Planets who are secretly all being mind controlled.

The setting is supposed to be a satire of fascist ideology, but at some point Games Workshop started believing the pro-Imperium propaganda they spend all day writing.

Can confirm, buddy with a resin printer is slowly hooking me up with an Adeptus Mechanicus army and he prints shit for his friends too. Recasts are likely in-between price-wise but pretty solid quality.

I don't think it has anything to do with their physical media, and everything to do with their successful video games sales over the past few years.