Kevin Rountree
The current CEO of Games Workshop. He took over from Tom Kirby starting in 2015[1].
His full name is Kevin Derek Rountree.
Strangely enough he's just a normal guy, as opposed to a WH fanboy. For him it's just another job, albeit higher up in the chain of command.
Under his direction GeeDubs has started a wide array of changes, both in business strategies, crunch and fluff, so far we got 12 Start Collecting sets for different armies for both games with, surprisingly, ACTUAL SAVINGS. For example, you buy a Crisis Suit Team, and for a little more cash you get a Fire Warrior team and a semi exclusive Ethereal on a hoverboard, or even better, you can pay for a Carnosaur and they will gift you a Saurus Knight box and 12 Saurus Warriors FOR FREE.
This is too good, almost too much to be true. Sadly the latter may be the case, as signs of the usual douchebaggery appeared, with attempts to stifle the lore-mending of Josh Reynolds and the axing of a certain undead not-Egypt faction and a certain Arthurian not-France faction, although it can be argued that the axing was already decided back when Kirby was still in charge...
Incoming news, Warhammer: The Old World is resurrecting WFB, also they are back in Total War: Warhammer! And he has given CA creative liberty, hence we got Vampire Coast!
They've also taken to social media, and appear to be developing an actual comprehensive FAQ for 40k, not to mention bringing points back to Fantasy. These are all signs that Rountree might actually care about their games as games and not just a means to sell models.
On an interesting note, the coming of Kevin Rountree bears similarities to the direction of both Warhammer settings; after apocalyptic events which outright destroyed the old universe or nearly consumed reality, we see the emergence of a great leader, who, after facing great loses, decides enough is enough, and formulates a game-changing plan to make its domain come back from the brink; of course, both imply new armies of super-armored guys, but we also got new factions or revampings of old classics into new and cool models (we just hope no more Taurox or Lords of Skulls, seriously, sometimes it's just no).
Only time will tell if Kevin does actually care about the community.
Update as of June 2016: HOLY SHIT HE BROUGHT BACK SPECIALIST GAMES AND ALLOWED MODS IN TOTAL WAR WARHAMMER, PRAISE BE UNTO OUR MESSIAH! HE ALSO GAVE US DEATHWATCH, GENESTEALER CULTS, AND PLASTIC HORUS HERESY! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! AND DID WE MENTION THAT HE BROUGHT FUCKING PRIMARCHS INTO 40K?!
Yet more exploits from the lord of GW
- WHFB The Old World with GW working on Kislev minis!
- Regimental Standard
- Warhammer Community
- Custodes in PLASTIC
- Plastic SoB (well, Celestine at least. It's a start). OOOH LAWDY IT'S ACTUAL PLASTIC SISTERS!
- He also re-hired a certain someone, FFFFFF... no-one's perfect. But wait! His writing has overall improved and the only sign is the return of Roboute Guilliman (whose sudden character development has turned Papa Smurf into quite a cool guy). That's right, it looks like things are on such an upswing, even the Spiritual Liege himself has improved, such is the power of the Lord of GeeDubs.
- AN ADEPTUS MECHANICUS ARMY HOLY SHIT.
- As of March 2017, Lord Kevin has managed to cause shares to nearly double in value, pushing Games Workshop stock to its highest level ever showing who is boss in the tabletop wargame industry.
- He's making a new edition of Talisman. NOW we are back to being about GAMES, not just Warhammer.
- Primarchs (both loyalist and traitor) in 40k!
- AND wait, what, 8th? 8th is by most accounts pretty good. Sure, it's still a little rough around the edges, but the majority of the changes are for the better, and it is still objectively smoother than any other edition so far.
- Yet again more Start Collecting!, for Slaanesh Daemons, Beastclaw Raiders, AND FYRESLAYERS. The first one has an Exalted Chariot, which is just a regular Chariot and a Hellflayer combined; the second only has 2 plastic kits, but this will make it unnecessary to buy Stonehorns/Thundertusks ever again while pumping your Mournfangs to up max size in no time. The third one has A FUCKING MAGMADROTH. Yes, it is straight-up a dropped price, one of the few (or maybe the first) price reductions. and one of the biggest, because it includes 10 Berzerkers in the math, and GW stopped selling Magmadroths individually. Might sound a wee bit tragic? Yes, but in the end, they will sell more and we will buy more bloody awesome magma salamanders.
- Trajann Valoris’ facial hair.
- HE BROUGHT FUCKING SQUATS BACK!!!!
- He has given Tindalos Studios permission to make Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2!
- PLASTIC
- FUCKING
- SISTERS!
- And for those of you who are new to Warhammer, yes this is a big deal, and with a new codex to boot!
- SISTERS!
- FUCKING
- By this point he has become a mighty slayer of foul memes and what not.
- And now, Adeptus Titanicus!
- And Rogue Trader!! Because if you are going to do it, you have to do it right.
- New KILLTEAM, that appear to be not some lousy copy-paste of regular 40k in lesser format, but different skirmish game. Over a dozen factions and two expansions released so far, it's increasingly promising.
- Our most beneficent and magnanimous lord has decided to share 5 million pounds of earnings with the 1700 GeeDubs employees, that's an average of 2941 pounds more for Duncan, Peachy, Matt, Phil, Jervis, Cruddace, Warhammer Community team, the guys from Warhammer TV and many others, here's the news, brought to you by BBC.
- New Ork Buggies! The old model was almost a quarter century old, and we finally get new stuff! Not only that, the reveal trailer is hilarious. "Inspiration, Emotion, Dakka."
- Also, profits have doubled since last year, with the highest historical earnings.
Update as of March 2018: Two years later and wow.
- "Lord Kevin" has been busy, and it shows. The amount of boxed games GW has been coughing up is a sight to behold, and each one is great fun. One point for happy community.
- On the opposite end, the new fluff that's been implemented has been rather divisive. While some are either happy or not discontent over GW finally letting the clock strike midnight on M42, just as many, if not more, fans are not pleased in the way this was done, with accusations ranging from making it child friendly to making it mainstream and everything in between. Most of these complaints are valid, and none are in army-burning territory, a select-few go into pants-on-head retarded justifications of their opinion that encroaches on vidya territory. While it may seem that this is merely an unfortunate coincidence, these decisions were almost definitely made, at least in part, by our Lord and Savior, make of it what you will.
Update as of November 2019:
- By the Emperor, now we can have plastic Eldar Aspect Warriors along with our Plastic Sisters, starting with the Howling Banshees.
- Warhammer: The Old World is, basically, Warhammer Fantasy 9th Edition, and despite not coming out for at least two years, we will definitely be returning to the days of square bases.
Updates for 2020
- 'E GOT UZ MAKARI BACK, 'ES A PROPPA GUD GIT
- He made 9th edition 40k available for preorder, this resulted in scalpers attempting to do their thing with the Indomitus Starter Set, our most cunning and multiple lord screwed over them by simply making the starter set Made to Order, and people thought the pict at the top didn't make sense!
- The limited-time Indomitus box is itself a paragon of his lordly munificence: a pair of 1,000 point armies that people actually give a shit about, top-heavy with wallet-molesting character and elite units, plus a rule book for $200 USD--about a 70% discount compared to buying equivalent units a la carte. Little wonder everyone wanted it.
UNCONFIRMED RUMOURS
- Him ordering The Old World is because he likes it fair and square like Scrooge McDuck.
- For that matter rumors say he is half scottish and half duck
- Another prevalent rumor is that he is an anonymous Patreon of Bruva Alfabusa and has ordered Games Workshop legal team never to issue him under any circumstances.
- In fact, some argue he has made GeeDub fund fanmade projects such as Astartes, The Death of Hope and others under the guise of Nivek Squarebush.
- Another rumor says he is Billy, the little mutant kid from TTS who always keps getting terrorized through the whole series.
- There is one rumor from my roomate that he is the one who made Matt Ward become suddenly better after continuously hitting with a squeaky version of Ghal-Maraz, akin to the one Emprah used on Tzeentch to steal back Magnus' soul.
- One rumor says he vetoed transforming units from the primaris marines, but secretly made so the Invictor and Invader models can be easily kitbashed into transformers in order to circumvent Hasbro's copyrights and maximize profits.
- A rumor says he tried to trap and bring Duncan Rhodes back after his departure but the bag he used was too thin-layered, allowing Duncan to break free.
- The craziest rumour yet is that he's even played a warhammer game at one point.