Hornby buy a stake in Warlord Games

[AndrewBeasley]

This popped up this weekend:

Hornby buy 25% of Warlord Games [Market Watch]

Options to buy a major stake or the whole company as part of the deal.

Interesting to see if the detail and rapid development of wargaming figures will come to Airfix and the classic train sets or if the 'established recycling' of older kits impact Warlord Games.

The price paid shows the difference in size between WG and GW...

[fred]

Hornby is using VC money to do this (and likely to fund its own business at the minute) - this tends to require pretty quick returns - so likely to see some changes.

[Mammoth miniatures]

haven't hornby almost gone under a dozen times over the last few years?

[voltan]

It could be a deal to get access to skytrex rather than an interest in wargaming.

Guess it's a wait and see thing really.

[Ninefingers]

Interesting to see if the detail and rapid development of wargaming figures will come to Airfix and the classic train sets or if the 'established recycling' of older kits impact Warlord Games.

Almost certainly the latter. I recently left the model railway industry after working in it for 16 years, and Hornby are not a company for independent innovation. It's that old adage - "Your original ideas are not good, and your good ideas are not original".

[carlos marighela]

Thomas the Tank Engine does Bolt Action.

If they do buy 'em out it might mean wider availability. Hornby and its major brands like Airfix have much higher retail visibility and distribution. Shared design and tooling costs might be a natural synergy.

Wonder what it means for the WG- Italeri kits? The Italeri versions were always about 30% cheaper here than the idetical WG boxed items.

[zemjw]

I am slightly surprised by this.

Warlord tends to buy other ranges, so I'd never really say they had a "brand look".

I guess we'll find out, I'm just not sure what's in it for Hornby, and I had no idea Warlord were looking to sell.

I do hope they don't have too grand a vision, as that doesn't always work out *cough* Modelzone *cough*

[Cat]

Hornby owns quite a few hobby companies already, including Humbrol which brought with it Airfix and Corgi.

[zemjw]

I don't know if it's related, but Warlord is having a clearance sale of a bunch of its stuff just now - link

[Comstr]

Prediction: The Warlord games we know is now doomed. The owner is cashing out.

A lot of the not-popular games (aka anything except Bolt Action, Black Powder) will be killed. See: the sale on now,

Epic scale might die too, I have no idea how popular it is.

A lot of the old hands will fade away.

They might try and make Bolt action as a alternative to Warhammer 40K. The VC's will see all the money GW is making and want a slice of that pie. They might even try making a home grown version (Yes I know about Gates of Antaras. I've never seen anyone play it) It will not work (Sadly, because GW needs some competition).


Enshiitifcation will ensure. That's Capitalism.

[eilif]

Wondering how this will affect K47.   The guys at the Warlord booth at Adepticon this year were hinting heavily that something good is in the works for K47.   Their are other good sources for WWW2 miniatures besides Warlord, but I like the K47 rules and I'd love to get a well-edited, comprehensive, collected edition of K47 before any drastic cuts to their lines.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Airfix is not making a good showing at the moment, it is quite rare to see the kits in shops other than the occasional specialist model shop.

Humbrol paints and liquid poly is rare.

Hobbycraft appeared to have a dispute with them and no longer stock them.

A number of the "names" at Hornby have recently left.

Bachmann has the Thomas franchise.

[carlos marighela]

Odd, there's a shit ton of Airfix kits locally, even in the more generic hobby shops.

Their model design, research, production values and general engineering has come leaps and bounds in recent years and some of their latest kits are benchmark items and highly sought after. They just released a 1/48 Sea King which will no doubt get Akky very excited.

[Ninefingers]

A number of the "names" at Hornby have recently left

That's the weirdest thing

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Odd, there's a shit ton of Airfix kits locally, even in the more generic hobby shops.

Their model design, research, production values and general engineering has come leaps and bounds in recent years and some of their latest kits are benchmark items and highly sought after. They just released a 1/48 Sea King which will no doubt get Akky very excited.

Maybe toy shops where you are think their customers might buy them (or are being offered the right incentives to stock them).

Locally to me there are a sad selection of the "Lego"* hybrid models in the Game section of the department store that is in the same group.

If Warlord could use the Airfix skills and techniques for their wargames models, they could leave Rubicon standing.

* http://ultravanillasmurf.blogspot.com/2017/11/airfix-quickbuild-harrier-kit.html