"10 Largest Mini Companies in England?" Topic

Which do you think are the 10 largest miniatures companies in England?

(Yes, I said "England" – not the entire U.K.)

Let's start with Games Workshop…

Oh sure. Pick the easiest one.

Is Gripping Beast in England itself?

Foundry is a strong case for #2.

Wargames Foundry

(Yes, I said "England" – not the entire U.K.)

Why?

The entire UK's about the size of Oregon

Why?

So I can save the "10 largest mini companies in Wales" question for a rainy day.

Throwing a few names out…

Mongoose is now out of the running.

Ral Partha Europe?

Prince August? Urban Mammoth? (or are these two north of Hadrian's Wall?)

Brigade

we are talking turnover here presumably?

Can we even get ten?

England is about twice the size of the greater New York City region, in population.

So I can save the "10 largest mini companies in Wales" question for a rainy day.

Make that a wet afternoon between 3:30 and 4:00…

Minifigs?

Irregular and Essex have to be in the running. Where is Minifigs-UK? Pendraken is in Cornwall IIRC. Navwar big enough to count?

What is your "bigness measure"? Things we have to guess like revenue, or available for sale line size, which we could at least count?

Where in the UK is Hasslefree?

Is Airfix still in the UK/England?
--
Tim

May Osprey be considered?

Prince August is in Ireland IIRC.

Could Navwar be up there?

Games Workshop
William Britain
Foundry
Perry Miniatures
Artizan
Crusader
Gripping Beast
?

Minifigs is located in Southampton.(Last time I checked, the southern part of the island's mass was still considred to be "England", as Bill asks about. They also do Reaper for the UK and Europe. That all by itself should make them "big"! 8>)

BTW, they are now "Miniature Figurines Productions, Ltd."

Best,
Tom Dye
GFI
(Minifigs in North America)

Whereabouts in Southampton are they? I live in Southampton and didn't know that!!!

Norrins

They are in Graham Road down at the Derby Road end. I used to live in Derby road in the 1980s and loved going into their front room shop with 1000s of figures in it!

We talking minis only, or game/minis distributors?

Are all the companies listed so far VAT registered? If not there are other companies that are that would be bigger.

Cheers,

Martin

Essex and Irregular have to be in the list, and I'm going to suggest thay are higher than Artisan, Crusader, Curtey's or Renegade, but Gripping Beast might be up there. Front Rank, Magister Militum, Lancashire Games, Battle Honours, QRF and Black Tree may also make the list.
Urban Mammoth, Scotia and Warrior Miniatures are all north of the border.
I'm starting to wonder about economic things like mimimum efficient scale and monopoly/monopsony power and how to measure the market…

I haven't seen The Assault Group mentioned, so I will throw them on the pile.

Jason

Bolt Action, Mongrel?

Great War Miniatures?

Prince August? Urban Mammoth? (or are these two north of Hadrian's Wall?)

Prince August is in the Republic of Ireland.

Urban Mammoth is in Scotland.

Irregular is huge in its figure ranges but is only a fairly small concern as a business, as are many other British manufacturers. Above the 'cottage industry' size but not major companies. I'd think Essex is a larger business.

Essex, Perry, Foundry, Crusader, Airfix, Gripping Beast, Bolt Action, Black Tree. That's 8 who I'd say were probably the "big boys". Hard to say who the other 2 might be…

@TheRifleman – Artizan are based in Wales (and would probably be #1 in a field of 1 on Bill's "rainy day" list).

QRF… may also make the list

Possibly not on its own, but as LKM Direct Limited with Feudal Castings and Freikorp15, plus some other bits and bobs, we do have a lot now.

Geoff
quickreactionforce.co.uk

We are not alone in Wales, Musketeer are about an hour from us further into Wales, We don't talk to them as they are from the wrong side of the valley ;-)
With Metal Miniature manufacturers,
GW and Foundry are the biggest,
Northstar handle Crusader and Great War as well as their own ranges and distribute Artizan.
Gripping Beast would come next I would say as they have a huge catalogue of figures.
Not sure after that sorry

Ground Zero Games must be in there somewhere (9 or 10?)

How about Skytrex

Baccus?

Navwar?

Airfix?

HaT?

Emhar?

I was playing about with the Companies House website a couple of months ago and I did a couple of searches on Wargames companies (as you do)

Don't quote me but as far as I recall revenue was something like:

Irregular £90k
Minifigs £120k
Wargames Foundry Can't remember but they had a lot of cash to hand.

As long as they are Limited companies its all in the public domain. So with the above in mind I suggest:

1. GW £100m+
2. Wargames Foundry £?
3. Minifigs £120,000
4. Irregular £90,000

Hate to say it, but last time I looked at the Books Essex was so much more Cash-Rich, and had so much more turnover than Foundry it made my jaw drop.

And that was about 10 years ago, when it was all 'Foundry' this and 'Foundry' that, and 'Foundry in yer face with full-colour advertisements on the back of every mag in the UK and the local street-gangs wearing Foundry colours, and Smarties making a Foundry-Coloured Smarty in the Tube, and Macdonalds doing a Chicken McFoundry '.

Nowadays I bet it's even more of a difference than that.

I would guess the top 4 is;
GW
Essex
GB
Foundry

What about Black Tree Design?

The sheer number of lines they do must indicate a decent turnover.

Want to know about a company?

Just pop along to companieshouse.gov.uk

Yes, but you have to pay for the accounts.

Horby Group (which now owns Airfix), annual turnover £44.00 GBP million, 2006 figures, the last I could find.

I'm not interested in large minis. Only 28mm or smaller.

I can't believe a company like Minifigs only turns over 120K. That can't support more than a couple of guys in a garage.

Actually, there are only 4 folks there to produce all the Minifigs and Reaper items. If you didn't know, Reaper is very prolific! 12+ new items a month! That can tie up one person for a week, easily, in just making the molds.

They had two houses, connected. 1/3 Graham Rd in Southampton. Liz makes a mean cup of coffee! 8>)

Tom Dye
GFI

To echo the comments above, much of minis production in the UK is very much a garage/garden shed activity.

Hey, I resent that. We don't use a garden shed any more. We have a proper box :-D

Interesting how much of this speculation centres on 28mm manufacturers specialising in pre-20thc stuff. There is an awful lot of wargaming done out there with other sizes of models and with ships and AFVs.

Wargaming is a bit like an iceberg. What you see as being most visible may not reflect the actual situation.

I'm not making any claims here at all. Just suggesting that the net might be cast a little wider.

It doesn't surprise me at all that most figure makers would be garage companies, just that anyone can make enough profit out of 120K to pay themselves a living wage, considering the costs of time, moulds, materials, tax and so on.

I always saw producers like Baccus as being in it as much for the fun as the money, however I would seriously hope they make enough profit to pay the mortgage and have a decent holiday and so on.

I'd like to make enough to buy the milk :-D

Peter Pig? I have sure spent a lot of money with them.

Navwar?

The Assualt Group? The only company that sends figures worldwide post free.

Gripping Beast?

Northstar Figures? They struggle to keep up with the demand for Great War Miniatures.

"It doesn't surprise me at all that most figure makers would be garage companies, just that anyone can make enough profit out of 120K to pay themselves a living wage, considering the costs of time, moulds, materials, tax and so on."

Lesson 1:
If you want to get rich, model soldiers isn't the way to do it.

However, I am reminded of when a friend of mine went into the B&B Business, He checked out about a dozen B&B's of varying size and location both to take over as going concerns and as research into starting his own from fresh. One thing he quickly discovered was that on inspecting their books, ALL of the places he looked at declared about £30,000 as their turnover to the the inland revenue….funny that, given the disparity in their size and location.
I expect a lot of small,one man band,wargames outlets are similar in many ways to a lot of small one-man band business'

Not only is Prince August in the Republic of Ireland, it's actually located in a Galetacht (Irish speaking) part.

No one's mentioned Skytrex yet.

Are we focussing only on manufacturers? There must be businesses (eg North Star, Dave Thomas) that pull in quite a bit of cash by selling several ranges.

OldGloryUK?
Ebay.co.uk ;)