Games Workshop has announced the upcoming release of the newest edition of their flagship tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000 via the Warhammer Community website and their various Facebook groups as well. The new edition will be released this year and will be bringing several major changes to the grim darkness of the far future that are heavily influenced by Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.
The biggest change that will catch everyone’s eye is the fact that the core rules will be released for free and made available at release. This puts Games Workshop in line with just about every other major tabletop wargaming system on the market now, as the current trend has been to give the rules out for free and charge for the sections containing the lore and backstory.
Another major shake-up is the move away from traditional codexes. When the next edition hits stores, Games Workshop will be releasing army rules for every unit in the game, similar to the rules released for the various Warhammer Fantasy armies when Age of Sigmar launched. This hints at another major shakeup to the structure of Warhammer 40K, which has been sorely needed for a long time.
The company has also released an FAQ on the release, which provides a bit more information regarding the upcoming edition change. It appears that Games Workshop has fully embraced the idea of ditching the “two minutes to midnight” plot device the game has been using for the past two decades and change, instead moving to an evolving narrative similar to Age of Sigmar. The FAQ also stresses the fact that no, the galaxy did not explode and wipe everything out like Warhammer Fantasy: The End Times did for Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
While this announcement doesn’t contain a great deal of new information to build on what was announced at Adepticon, it does show that Games Workshop is listening to its player base and understands the simple fact that the current edition of Warhammer 40K is in desperate need of an overhaul. The current edition is suffering from a great deal of rules bloat and cruft built up over the many years of the game’s lifespan and said bloat has left the game overall with a very stale feeling overall.
