One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to visit the local Warhammer store wherever I go. I do a fair amount of roving, mostly on account of my kids being hockey players in Kentucky. If you happen to be in Massachusetts or Minnesota, Michigan or New York you likely enjoy a fairly robust density of youth hockey teams in your area.
In Kentucky, your ass is hittin’ the road.
I always try to pick up a little something for myself on each of these visits. Whether it’s a Scribbus Wretch, The Tallyman mini in Cleveland or a massive Black Library shopping spree in Cincinnati (YottaQuest FTW), it’s fun to have my Black Library Museum decorated with little keepsakes and mementos from different parts of the country.
As some of you may know (especially those that also enjoy the Black Library content here), we’ve been spending a lot of time in Houston recently as a result of my wife being accepted for a clinical trial at MD Anderson. With the trial now concluded, we bid farewell to Texas by stopping in at the Warhammer Store & Cafe in Grapevine. North America’s flagship Warhammer store, it was definitely on my list of things to do here in Texas and this was the last chance I’d get.
I could easily have lost a few hours inside, but of course with the long drive to Louisville ahead of me I had to be economical with time. But it was a delight to see a store that so richly wore its heart and history on its sleeve. Boxes on the walls from different product releases from the game’s early days, museum-quality display shelves of miniatures and dioramas, and even some replica items housed away in an Inquisitorial display. With the gaming table area done up like an Astra Militarum base it was a LARPer’s dream.
I was saddened to see, though, that despite being the top store in North America, it’s role-playing stock was little better than my standard-issue-size store back in Louisville. I’d have taken a picture but there wasn’t much to see- three copies of the Soulbound Starter Set and a copy of the Elector Counts card game, stuck on a rack with the officially licensed hats and dress ties.
It was completely uninspired, and if that what you based your judgment and expectation of Warhammer role-playing on, you’d likely conclude that our part of the hobby was- at best- an afterthought.
It’s not as if officially licensed merchandise wasn’t prominently displayed there, as one whole wall was given over to another licensed partner, Warhammer Art. But alas, Cubicle 7 seems to get little love in the official retail space.
In fairness, I understand that Games Workshop mainly considers itself to be in the miniatures business, and with retail space tight in many of their locations they may be understandably reticent to devote precious space to something that, well, isn’t miniatures. But by the same token, there’s certainly some value in representing Warhammer as a broad property with many points of entry.
Given the rarity of coverage of Warhammer RPG’s on Warhammer Community, I’d argue this is more a company culture issue than a retail space issue. And to be abundantly clear, I’m not putting my disappointment on the very friendly Staff of the Grapevine store, either. They can only work with what they’ve been sent.
Rather, it feels like in licensing out production of the Warhammer role-playing games to another company, they’ve similarly offloaded the entire segment into the care of its own ecosystem (non-GW tabletop and board game stores).
Given how much IP Games Workshop churns out, this goes in the other direction as well. This was the focus behind my recent Bladeborn Goes Soulbound piece, crafting RPG assets from some of the underutilized creative work from GW. Expect more of this content ahead, and not just for Age of Sigmar.
I won’t boil this ocean today, but needless to say bridging the gap continues to be something that weighs on my mind. With that said, let’s get to the games!
RPG Bestsellers
Bookwriters get their New York Times bestseller lists, so why shouldn’t we enjoy the same thing? While we don’t have any aggregated sales lists, we can use DriveThruRPG’s top-seller list as a reasonable barometer- and here’s this week’s snapshot!
Warhammer RPG Titles in the Top 200:
#14 (-3). Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Sylvania: The Cursed County
#67 (-10). Wrath & Glory: Lex Imperialis
#99 ( - ). Wrath & Glory: Core Rulebook
#131 (-80). Warhammer The Old World: Talagaad Adventures
#134 ( - ). Warhammer Fantasy 4ª Edition: Guía de Juego: Enanos
#159 (-13). Imperium Maledictum: Core Rulebook
#174 ( - ). Warhammer Fantasy 4ª Edition: Señores de la Piedra y el Acero
Total Books in Top 200: 7 ( +1 )
#192 ( - ): Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: Core Rulebook
Sadly, we bid farewell to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition’s Core Rulebook, which slipped off the table after climbing back on at #192. That said, it was interesting to see some WFRP 4th Edition translations from Devir chart today. The Spanish translations of both the Dwarf Player’s Guide as well as the Lords of Stone and Steel made their debuts, suggesting that either Dwarf characters suddenly became very popular with the Spanish-speaking community, or the translations hit the market this week. I’m guessing the latter.
ICYMI
Interest in Imperium Maledictum seems to be growing, and Ill Met by Morrslieb took the opportunity to deliver a terrific review of the game’s Starter Set.
Speaking of reviews, here’s a look at Warhammer: The Old World RPG by Nightharrow Gaming, too!
Careless Conjuration resumed its terrific GM’s Guide to the Enemy Within series this week, pivoting next to kicking off Death on the Reik.
This was an excellent piece from Miniature Realms this week on Warhammer: The Old World and its lack of support in the official house organs of Games Workshop. It’s focused on the tabletop, not the role-playing game, but the points about the opportunities for better support are worth considering for us on the RPG side as well. This is one reason why Codex Discordia (covered last week here) has been so intriguing!
Not directly Warhammer related, but one piece on Substack I really enjoyed this week was this one by the legendary Monte Cook. Entitled For Every Right Way, There’s a Wrong Way, he talks about the law of unintended consequences in game design.
Coming Attractions
Here’s a list of the known upcoming physical releases from Cubicle 7 based on the available preorder information we have. Note that Cubicle 7’s own delivery estimates appear to be just that- estimates- which is why many products have an upcoming delivery listed for Q1 while we’re already past that.
This section will be updated weekly in this column, with new or updated info presented in boldface.
Shipping Q3
Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 1 (July 2026)
Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 2 (July 2026)
Shipping Q4
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Temple of Spite (Q4)
Shipping 2027
Sylvania: The Cursed Country
Shipping Q2
Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game, Grand Duchy of Talabec Map Pack (May 2026)
Shipping Q4
Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Starter Set (Q4)
Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Gamemaster’s Screen (Q4)
Shipping 2027
Talagaad Adventures
Shipping Q1
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Dark Gifts Card Pack (Q1)
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Spells Lore Card Pack (Q1)
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Artefacts & Wargear Card Pack (Q1)
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Core Rulebook (Standard and Collector’s Edition) (Q1)
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Bloodwind Spoil Map (Q1)
Shipping Q3
Limited Edition Age of Sigmar Map Bundle (July 2026)
Shipping Q1 2027
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound: Champions of Chaos: Carngrad Adventures
Shipping Q4
Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory, Adventures in Gilead
Shipping Q3
Limited Edition Imperium Maledictum Macharian Sector Map (July 2026)
Shipping Q4
Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Collector’s Edition
Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Player’s Guide
Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Gamemaster’s Guide
Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Character Sheet Pad (Q4)
Undated
(Nothing at this time)
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Yeah, that's an interesting point and something I noticed as well. I just think the Gameworkshop store model is to sell GWs games first and foremost: 40k and Old World. If they doesnt work, the secondary stuff: Necromunda, BB, etc
Once you get past all that, they realize their staff can't handle ALSO pushing RPGs. It's already defined itself as a purely wargaming store.
I can only think of a couple stores I've ever seen that had both a good stock of war game minis and RPGs. Most stores if they have either one, only do one. Must be the audiences have very little cross-over, despite the obviously shared license interest