Fans of the Warhammer universes will no dobut have noticed in recent days that Games Workshop has been hit hard financially. Despite multiple space marine releases and efforts to generate more revenue with various methods, and multiple releases of their most successful factions, the company has lost 24% of its overall value.

While this has been speculated to have resulted, at least in part, from years of price hikes and a focus upon brand new customers over veterans, the more pressing issue will be company’s reactions to this loss. Rumours are already coming in of various cost cutting measures, and none are good news to fans of the franchise. Covered by the hobby news and rumours website Faeit 212, sources have stated the following:

* Games Workshop Germany and potentially France will be closed, with multiple store closures seen across countries including the USA and UK.

* There will be no more Finecast products seen from the company.

* Forge World will be handling all Lords of the Rings and Hobbit based products, with the subsidiary company’s models being directly available over a redesigned Games Workshop website.

* Roughly 30% of the sortiment will become webshop exclusives.

* Wood Elves, Bretonnia, Beastmen and Khemri will no longer receive support. No further updates, support or future models.

The news of Germany’s closure has already been confirmed, and other issues already support a number of these points. The diminishing sales of the Lord of the Rings game and lack of customers picking up the Hobbit miniatures or rulebooks have been a problem for some time. Furthermore, both Black Library and multiple Games Workshop stores across the UK have seen significant restructuring. The former explained by those seeking review copies of upcoming titles, and the latter visible in the significant downsizing of staff throughout a large number of stores. Furthermore, while Faeit may be a rumours website a great many of its predictions have been accurate in recent months with early information on sales, dataslates and new rulebooks.

This also would not be the first time Games Workshop has shut down an entire army for financial reasons. The Squats were infamously discontinued due to a supposed lack of popularity, along with Chaos Dwarfs and a few other minor models ranges such as Dogs of War. While each has their dedicated players and fans, they have never been the biggest selling armies and some have armybooks which have not seen updates in several editions.

Expect more on this topic in the coming weeks.

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