Editing Games Workshop (section)

===2020-2021: The Seeds of Treachery===
*When the initial surge of the COVID-19 pandemic went global (we know; something, something Nurglites), Games Workshop ceased doing online orders and closed many of their stores and factories around the world due to lockdown and quarantine policies in various countries including the UK. Thankfully, GW has been doing their best to maintain connection with the community online, lift spirits, and keep people informed about upcoming (albeit inevitably delayed) new releases.
**As of May 1st, GW's website re-opened for online orders in select locations (their webstore is still closed to the US, Canada, Italy, Australia and New Zealand). Their Forge World website is still closed and the Black Library is restricted to ebook sales only for the immediate future.
**In mid-June GW re-opened many physical stores, but social distancing is still recommended (including/especially for the Nurglites).
**GW's webstore is now fully online for everybody again, though many items now have quantity per customer limits to help compensate for their reduced ability to restock supplies. Additionally, while their factories are once again up and running, production is still continuing at a rather reduced rate, resulting in somewhat lengthy time frames for product to restock.
*Warhammer 40k entered its 9th edition in late 2020, giving the core rules a fair makeover without changing the gameplay mechanics too much. All 8th edition supplements and codexes are fully compatible with the new edition, but need to be replaced once their 9th edition variants launch.
*9th edition ushered in a new era for Necron players by propping them up as the main antagonistic faction of the new edition, granting them ''many'' new models and units in a near complete overhaul of their range. Space Marines, of course, also received yet another considerable slew of new Primaris units to keep the nearly 4-year long Space Marine release spree rolling strong.
*Though new codexes were being released near-monthly during the onset of 9th edition, further restrictions on production and shipping due to COVID-19 have resulted in extensive release delays for new codexes and models until further notice.
*Games workshop has recently hired several popular fan animators. These animations, previously available to anyone for free on youtube, are now being marketed as part of the new Warhammer+ streaming service. Furthermore, GW has recently released a change to its copyright rules banning all fan animations from making money.
*40k Kill Teams was ushered into the new edition with a new, frankly disgusting box set featuring the much coveted Heavy Intercessors and new Flayed Ones in one of ''the'' most imbalanced matchups ever seen. Priced at a rather steep $160 for 12 models in total, GW seems to have no reservations about continuing to bump up their prices.
*GW has doubled down on their animation ambitions and has signed on the talent behind very prominent fan-created projects such as ''Astartes'' and ''The Exodite'' to continue their work officially under GW's payroll. It remains to be seen how much free reign these formerly independent creators will be allowed, as the ''Astartes'' shorts were removed from their original Youtube home and transplanted onto Warhammer Community's website with a few notable edits (and definition drop).
**This has expanded into a more contentious issue as GW decided that they would jog sweatily behind the video streaming service with Warhammer+. As of May 2021, it's being promised as being the only place to see many original Warhammer-only animations like the Exodite, Astartes Part 2, and Angels of Death. Of course, [[rage|people are up in arms]] because all this shit that was originally free on Youtube thanks to crowdfunding is now being thrown behind a paywall.
**June 2021 has revealed some further aspects about Warhammer+; its launch date is slated for August 25th and it's not only going to have the original animations as part of its subscription service, but a surprisingly diverse catalog of content. Indeed, also included are exclusive models (one of which is given out to annual subscribers on their subscription anniversary with the other being available for purchase), included paid subscriptions to the 40K and AoS rules apps, inhouse Battle-Reports for AoS and 40k, painting tutorials and some back issues of [[White Dwarf]] and book series such as the Gathering Storm. All under an umbrella price-tag of £4.99/$5.99 a month (or £49.99/$59.99 a year). While tempting and all, it's still only a matter of time before the verdict comes in and people can judge the value of this not-so-ambitious model for milking money outside of the perpetual Codex Creep and plastic crack.
*In a rather interesting move, GW is preparing to release a series of rule supplements for an upcoming campaign: War Zone Charadon. The first book, ''The Book of Rust'' features the Adeptus Mechanicus, Imperial Knights and Death Guard, providing new rules, Codex Supplements and "Armies of Renown". At the time of announcement, neither the Imperial Knights or Adeptus Mechanicus have even had their 9th Edition codexes announced. As the AdMech codex has released about a month after the Book of Rust, it seems to be as compatible with 8E as it is with 9E as it didn't do anything to address any of the changes in editions.
**War Zone Charadon's second book, ''The Book of Fire'', continues the very questionable trend of dicking over factions that have yet to have their codexes released while granting more perks to armies, like the Adeptus Mechanicus and Sororitas, who just had their codexes released and are already in a relatively strong position. Chaos Space Marines get a token mention in the book...[[FAIL|by having their old rules reprinted, without even granting them the extra wound per model they sorely need]]. In the meantime, it's the best option if one wants to purchase the brand new Be'lakor and field him in his own special army.
*Kill Teams is getting another new edition (already?). This new version of Kill Teams does come with a rather juicy incentive: [[Awesome|plastic Death Korps of Krieg]] facing off against freshly minted Ork Kommandos. Indeed, to celebrate the launch, DKoK is getting a special plastic kit that can be used to make 10 standard Guardsmen or Veterans and even comes with enough extra bits and bobs to thoroughly customize individual models as specialists. Yes, they can be used for Kill Teams or for standard 40k. Yes, those bits include lots of shovels. Yes, GW released an animation of a Krieger killing an Ork with one.
**The new edition of Kill Teams features a very extensive overhaul of the game mechanics. Where last edition was built around a system relatively similar to 40k's gameplay, Kill Teams uses a completely different structure that does ''not'' translate to 40k.
*Speaking of Orks, their new codex was ushered in by a new box set containing a brand new Ork subfaction; the Beast Snaggas. These squig-riding/wrangling Orks are also accompanied by a fairly sizeable range refresh, including new Ork Boyz, Kommandos (per Kill Teams at least) and even new DeffKoptas. ''Unfortunately'', the new Ork Beast Snaggas box set was limited edition and was the only source of the Ork Codex until further notice.
*One minor complaint is that their Youtube comments section is almost always turned off; the complainers have clearly never seem how brain-breakingly terrible YouTube comments are because they'd consider this a good thing if they did. The fact that this is still better than the previous decade and a half shows how bad things really got. Thank fuck for sensible economic choices being finally deemed necessary.
*Another complaint aim at GW is them taking a stance in a political issue. After the George Floyd incident, GW released a statement on Twitter (https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449). The response from the community has been...mixed, with some praising GW for speaking out on an important issue and other saying that they should stay out of politics and accusing them of hypocrisy due to the recent price increase actually excluding more people from the hobby.
**Now the whole message that they wrote was almost certainly corporate bullshit, because almost every big company has released a similar statement. But that didn't stop parts of the community from acting like retards. On one side, leftyfags used the fact that a corporation said something they support to discuss plans to force people they disagree with out of hobby while changing the setting to be more "inclusive". On the other side, rightyfags got salty that most don't like calling black people racist slurs "as a joke" and call them names back while blaming "the SJW menace". So you know, overly political fucktards using a tragic situation to try and assimilate the rest of the community to their way of thinking and calling for their heads if they don't.
*Age of Sigmar's Broken Realms Saga was released to moderately positive reception, with it having more narrative impact on its setting than 40k's Psychic Awakening had. Following the conclusion of the Saga, AoS Third Edition was released, with revamps to older systems in the game, and the introduction of new ones such as Monstrous Rampages, Heroic Actions, and Universal Battalions. As well as new model ranges for Stormcast and Orruk Warclans.
**As of November 2021, the Age of Sigmar community has not suffered as badly from GW's predatory and ever infuriating business practices, especially in comparison to the 40k community. Partially this can be attributed to the smaller pool of officially licensed media or fanmade content meaning fewer incidents of NDA or copyright scumbaggery. Whatever the reasoning, many AoS fans still wait with baited breath for whenever GW finally slips up and squanders their last good graces.