Has WHF/WH40K become more mainstream?

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2007-05-31 11:54am

I don't mean the models, I mean the literacy side of things.

The reason I'm asking is because in bookshops that a few years ago had never even heard of 40K, now have huge amounts of them on the shelves, dwarfing more well known series (such as StarWars, where in my local stores now, is out numbered by the 40K/WHF by a multitude, the Waterstones next door had every Omnibus short of the Inquisition War)

So, is there a particular reason for this? Have those young kiddies who once played the tabletop now learned to read and started buying them up? Or has the universe caught the imagination of even the most nublety of Sci-Fi virgins?

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2007-05-31 12:09pm

Yes. I suspect it's caught on a bit more in the UK than it has here in the States, but yes, there's been some progress.

I think it's primarily due to Dawn of War and to some extent, the upcoming Warhammer Online. The core game, by its very nature, is going to remain relatively obscure despite arguably being the premier tabletop miniature wargame. An A-grade, high-profile game like DoW however, backed by solid development, publishing, and continued franchise support, reaches to a far greater demographic and raises awareness of the franchise considerably. I know a good deal of the members here on the board who now have at least a casual interest in 40k got that interest from, if not the game itself, then the awareness it has indirectly raised.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2007-05-31 01:06pm

Wh40K is very mainstream in Russia. Any youngster knows about it by now.

WHF, on the other hand, is not.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2007-05-31 01:12pm

I can't recall ever seeing a 40K-related product, anywhere, apart from the DoW and Firesomething games. It's entirely a tabletop-gaming niche thing.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2007-05-31 01:27pm

Compared to where it was fifteen years ago, yes.

In the last five or six years and compared to everything else, it's still very much in its own niche. Even now, after about thirty years, roleplaying games are not very mainstream, and tabletop gaming as a whole is much less so.

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2007-05-31 03:02pm

I recently went over to the arse end of Spain for a holiday (Arse end in that no one knew English, which was fine by me) and I went several bookstores over there, and they all had several 40K novels translated for sale. So clearly it is growing beyond the borders of the UK more than it used to, heh.

I can't recall ever seeing a 40K-related product, anywhere, apart from the DoW and Firesomething games. It's entirely a tabletop-gaming niche thing.

Yeah well, we all know translating stuff for Belgium is easy as getting Spanky to give up his collection, It takes a long time and there's just so many choices (Do we do it French? Dutch? Flemish?! *publisher dies*)

Don;t kill me Spanky, but it was the first metaphor that sprang to mind!

white_rabbit · Post by **white_rabbit** » 2007-05-31 03:46pm

More recently Lord of The Rings probably helped, but the literature side of it has been expanding for the last ten years, Warhammer Monthly and Inferno were both award winning at one time or another, and the BL imprint has published more and more books.

simply put. There are a shedload more books around, and they got picked up by a few more mainstream stores, WH Smiths, Waterstones etc.

This is in the UK of course, couldn't comment about anywhere else.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2007-05-31 05:03pm

Dartzap wrote:Yeah well, we all know translating stuff for Belgium is easy as getting Spanky to give up his collection, It takes a long time and there's just so many choices (Do we do it French? Dutch? Flemish?! *publisher dies*)

Don;t kill me Spanky, but it was the first metaphor that sprang to mind!

Actually, I threw the collection away a year ago with little difficulty.

Utsanomiko · Post by **Utsanomiko** » 2007-05-31 06:48pm

To the best of my knowledge, there is exactly one store stocking Warhammer wargame items in my county. So there is maybe one little hobbyist-run store for twenty miles and 200,000 people.

Games Workshop really hasn't done a lot to make their property prominent, and their UK business model and fear of the internet aren't doing a whole lot here.

Academia Nut · Post by **Academia Nut** » 2007-05-31 06:51pm

I know that the two Warhammer franchises have suddenly become more popular in my city. About this time last year I started to notice that my local library had suddenly acquired a large number of WFB and 40k books for its paperback sci-fi section and there was now stuff in the local Chapters. Still hard to find anything specific, for which Amazon has to suffice for now, but there is definitely more stuff available than there was say two years ago.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2007-05-31 06:56pm

As mentioned, Dawn of War did a whole lot for GW and the prominence of Warhammer 40k. The books are now stocked in full at places that barely acknowledged them before. In part that's because of the game and in part because Black Library has grown and promoted itself well for the last few years.

But the game, it's not doing nearly as well as it used to even. It used to be a staple of table top gaming but bad business decisions by GW and increasing competition from other gaming companies and games are undercutting them there.

Feil · Post by **Feil** » 2007-05-31 08:05pm

What's mainstream? The only science fiction or fantasy that I know of that more than one out of ten randomly people would have ever read or watched are Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter.

starfury · Post by **starfury** » 2007-05-31 08:27pm

As mentioned, Dawn of War did a whole lot for GW and the prominence of Warhammer 40k. The books are now stocked in full at places that barely acknowledged them before. In part that's because of the game and in part because Black Library has grown and promoted itself well for the last few years.

Yeah in the Bookstores in my area, we finally recently had WH40K Books Finally appearing on Bookselves in Basic Bookstores in the Mall, Still the Stuff is still small potatos compared to the rows and rows of Star wars and Star Trek Books in most Bookstores, it's still fairly obscure here.

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2007-05-31 09:43pm

I've seen Barnes and Nobles here have at least two rows of shelf space so they're indeed getting noticed.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2007-06-01 01:30am

Soontir C'boath wrote:I've seen Barnes and Nobles here have at least two rows of shelf space so they're indeed getting noticed.

Same at the B&N and Borders where I am at (though Borders is smaller being in a mall, and they don't have two rows, only one.) Its not quite as extensive a selection as the SW shelves (but rarely is) but SW also has a bit of RPG, comic, and Essential guide/visual dictionary stuff devoted to it. Its got as much/more shelf space than Trek, and certainly beats out the other franchises (Battletech, Starcraft, Halo, nBSG, etc.) They also put alot of the omnibus and hardcovers (like Abnett's novels) or the Horus Heresy novels up with the rest of them when they get released. They're also quite popular too, because when I check back they sometimes have novels gone that I have been checking on.

Mind you, the games don't seem to have caught on here that I know of - we dont have many gaming stores, so I haven't seen them here at all (not that that's an issue - other games like B5 Wars never really sold much here either.)

But the computer games and novels certainly have caught on I'd say.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2007-06-01 04:45am

I've noticed this, too. My local Borders has more 40k than Star Trek, several copies of each of the omnibi, a Warhammer-themed endcap, and some of the RPG supplements. Right across the street is a Barnes and Noble with roughly the same stock. I had assumed at first that my buying habits must have somehow screwed up their ordering process, but it now seems like 40k is on the rise in popularity. I blame the internet.

Of course, Borders has at least twice as many Drizzt books as Warhammer, and a whole shelf column of TSR-owned series...

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2007-06-01 10:39am

Personally, I've always known about WH40K, and have known of about four or five stores where it's sold and played (in Malaysia).

However, I had little interest in it until Dawn of War came about. I was expecting it to be the usual high-tech sci-fi fare, but the dark, cynical nature of the universe pleasantly surprised me. Now, I'm looking to read some of the novels and see how they go, but it's doubtful I'll ever get into the tabletop game; purchasing, assembling and painting the miniatures seems like too much effort to me.

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2007-06-03 04:50pm

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:I've noticed this, too. My local Borders has more 40k than Star Trek, several copies of each of the omnibi, a Warhammer-themed endcap, and some of the RPG supplements. Right across the street is a Barnes and Noble with roughly the same stock. I had assumed at first that my buying habits must have somehow screwed up their ordering process, but it now seems like 40k is on the rise in popularity. I blame the internet.

You work for Borders too?

We've got two and a half shelves of 40k/Fantasy underneath Star Wars, and we had a 40k endcap last month. We can't keep Horus Heresy stuff, or the Eisenhorn Omnibus on the shelf either.

RazorOutlaw · Post by **RazorOutlaw** » 2007-06-03 05:43pm

Soontir C'boath wrote:I've seen Barnes and Nobles here have at least two rows of shelf space so they're indeed getting noticed.

I can fourth that. Near my college there's a fairly large Barnes and Noble(s) and right in the center isle they had a display with new releases on it.

Right next to a couple of serious looking fiction books was Warhammer 40k: Deathworld. I was thinking "Wow, how did Warhammer ever get placed here?"

I guess for as much as I've become interested in the fluff, there's a thin layer of cheese underneath that makes it hard to place next to more popular Sci-Fi/Fantasy like SW or ST.

RazorOutlaw · Post by **RazorOutlaw** » 2007-06-03 05:44pm

Ghetto edit: Well in my mind anyway. I don't envision Warhammer tackling serious issues like some books would try to, albeit some short stories have particularily human characters in them.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2007-06-04 02:59am

Falkenhayn wrote: You work for Borders too?
We've got two and a half shelves of 40k/Fantasy underneath Star Wars, and we had a 40k endcap last month. We can't keep Horus Heresy stuff, or the Eisenhorn Omnibus on the shelf either.

I didn't admit to that.

>_>
<_<
>_>

We've sold tons of Eisenhorn, Let the Galaxy Burn and CS Goto's "works", but for some reason Ciaphas Cain is slow to sell.
For a while, Horus Heresy stuff was shelved under "Horus Heresy" instead of "Warhammer", so we didn't sell any until I started mis-shelving it. Now it's all in the bronze edition cover, except for Eisenstein.

I was surprised by the endcap. Usually we don't get any science fiction endcaps, let alone an obscure series endcap.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2007-06-04 03:10am

RazorOutlaw wrote: Right next to a couple of serious looking fiction books was Warhammer 40k: Deathworld. I was thinking "Wow, how did Warhammer ever get placed here?"
I guess for as much as I've become interested in the fluff, there's a thin layer of cheese underneath that makes it hard to place next to more popular Sci-Fi/Fantasy like SW or ST.

Ironically, most of the Warhammer books I've read are less cheesy than what's considered "mainstream SF" right now. There are no sex-addicted vampires or child prodigy Mary Sues. The sociology of the universe is far more believable given its parameters than in a lot of 'serious' SF. The pacing is certainly better, too.

And don't even get me started on the current state of ST's and SW's extended universes. Compared to those two series, Warhammer is a model of quality control and continuity.

That is until Goto writes the Horus Heresy into a brushfire war.

Slacker · Post by **Slacker** » 2007-06-04 12:44pm

The Games Workshop books are here in the Borders in New York.

I manage the largest gaming store on Long Island (and second largest if one includes NYC...Compleat Strategist still pwns us). We've definitely noticed an upswing in interest due to the DoW series. It's not what I would call mainstream, but there's a Warhammer club at one of the local school districts with thirty odd kids in it and a more generic gaming club at another with well over a hundred, where they play the full range of stuff, including 40k and Mordhiem.

RazorOutlaw · Post by **RazorOutlaw** » 2007-06-04 01:07pm

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:
RazorOutlaw wrote: Right next to a couple of serious looking fiction books was Warhammer 40k: Deathworld. I was thinking "Wow, how did Warhammer ever get placed here?"
I guess for as much as I've become interested in the fluff, there's a thin layer of cheese underneath that makes it hard to place next to more popular Sci-Fi/Fantasy like SW or ST.
Ironically, most of the Warhammer books I've read are less cheesy than what's considered "mainstream SF" right now. There are no sex-addicted vampires or child prodigy Mary Sues. The sociology of the universe is far more believable given its parameters than in a lot of 'serious' SF. The pacing is certainly better, too.

And don't even get me started on the current state of ST's and SW's extended universes. Compared to those two series, Warhammer is a model of quality control and continuity.

That is until Goto writes the Horus Heresy into a brushfire war.

I guess you could just chalk that up as ignorance on my part. I'd say for about the past 7 years or so (start of High School until now) I've solidly avoided science fiction. Warhammer 40k got me back into it but I've never been too interested in poking my head outside of this niche. The last non 40k book I read was "The Forever War" which is decades old.

And out of curiosity, Mary Sues and sex addicted vampires? I'm sure one of those is Anne Rice, and likely it would be the latter. But as for the Mary Sue, who would that fall under?

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2007-06-04 01:42pm

I don't think Warhammer is really pure science fiction per se.. there's an equal amount of mystical aspects to it. Heck, among the human characters, even the high technology aspects are looked at in a non-secular way.