Hornby buy into Warlord Games

[Pj-361325]

Hornby have just bought 25% of Warlord Games with an option of a buy out in two years....standard commercial terms.

Warlord are Britain's biggest historical Wargames model manufacturer and with their Skytrex subsidiary give Hornby substantial Uk based manufacturing potential.

[Fazy]

Hardly substantial, don’t expect this to bring Hornby’s production back to the uk.

[Moccasin]

They subcontract as a resin model manufacturer and they have an ongoing relationship with each other. The city seem to have reacted positively to this and the accompanying extension to Hornby’s loan facility.

I wonder if this is also linked to Hornby’s reputed move into experiential retail. Wargaming can add to the offer for any sort of foray into establishing a high street presence

[Rallymatt]

Unlikely that Hornby would move much of its production to UK, as there just isn’t the skilled model making workforce in sufficient volume outside of China that is required to make detailed finished models in quantity, at a price the market can work with. It’s interesting that war gaming favour 15mm, which is essentially TT:120, a standardisation across modelling of multiple genres would make a lot of sense

[ColinB]

Interesting comment Rallymatt. I doubt that that they bring production back to the UK but more for lack of finance. Having watched an excellent YouTube video by Jenny Kirk it appears most of production is by machine. The model making skills are in the dies necessary for production, which Margate probably still designs. As for the skills shortage, it is called training which a lot of manufacturers seen to not want to do. China is no longer as cheap as it originally was, plus the political situation would be worrying for any producer in this country. We then have the quality aspect, China are happy with 10% failure rate most of the UK manufacturers expect a fraction of a percent. On a loco costing over £200 that equates to many unhappy customers. It fascinates me how companies can borrow to buy other companies when they are heavily into debt, but I assume that they are hoping that this investment might improve their fortunes.

[Rallymatt]

MR, thanks for that, I had been looking at some 15mm vehicles having been assured they were TT:120 not TT3…I will give them a miss 👍

Colin, there will still be a lot of hand assembly as it just wouldn’t be practical for such low runs with such varied requirements. I know what you mean about training but it’s been so long, 20-30 years since there was any mass model making in UK, you would be starting from zero and the lead in would cripple the finances before you got going. After the drawings have been done, everything else happens in China, all the tooling making, casting die manufacturing etc. China can make good kit but you need your own presence in the factories and in small operations such a toy train industry that’s very difficult for lots of reasons.