Notice from GW and the future of the Warhammer Armies Project

Since the demise of Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB) in 2015, the purpose of the Warhammer Armies Project has been to keep the game going and be freely accessible as a repository for all the old Warhammer lore in as close to its original form as possible, so anyone interested could enjoy it even after Games-Workshop (GW) had stopped selling the books. However, as GW still retains the intellectual property rights to the material, this would always be at their mercy for however long they would tolerate it.

 

As I posted on our Discord server two days ago, I've recently been contacted by Games-Workshop regarding using their text and artwork in the majority of the Warhammer Armies Project publications, and they have requested me to remove all instances which infringes in their intellectual property. I don't begrudge them for doing so, even if I would obviously have preferred to be allowed to keep the books up as is. I also want to point out that GW has been very polite about the whole thing, and in no way threatening. I also appreciate that I have been able to keep the project going for this many years and keep the interest for WFB alive during that time.

 

What this means is that starting today; all the download links to the books are no longer available on this website anymore and I will not be able to keep working on the books in their current format. This also applies to the non-GW army books as most of them contain some amount of GW lore and/or art; and the few that do not are not really worth to keep up by themselves as part of a now very incomplete collection. 

 

However, the current web version of the game is still active as it does not really contain any lore apart from some snippets and the rules themselves. I am also considering reworking all books into a "rules-only" system with PDF's similar to the Ravening Hordes style list from early 6th edition, where you would have access to all the rules and could still play the game. Unit and character names would also remain unchanged. 

 

However, with the onset of the Old World likely getting fairly close to release, any such rework will have to wait until then. The reason is pretty simple; an officially supported WFB by GW is much more likely to see play, and I imagine a large part of the community will move over to it. As such, I don't want to waste my time reworking and rewriting everything only for it to be superseded a few months later. If the Old World rules turn out to be good - great, then we can all play that, and I will consider to make expanded rules for it (but without the lore most likely). If the Old World turns out not so great - I will likely keep supporting 9th edition.

 

Note that I do not want to make any promises I cannot keep - I've been working on the Warhammer Armies Project for over 13 years now, and I'm not a student with a ton of free time anymore. I'm married, have a full time job and a lot of miniatures to paint. As such, I cannot say for certain what the future will be for the Warhammer Armies Project, only that I will do my best to support it as well as I can make the time for it.

 

So for the foreseeable future, this website will be limited to just being a hobby blog of my personal armies along with the link to the current web version of the 9th Edition rules and a few hobby-related downloads. But regardless of what happens to the Warhammer Armies Project later on, it's been a fun (if sometimes frustrating) ride, and those of you who still have the army books can of course use them to keep playing the game and share it with your friends. 

 

I also want to wholeheartedly thank everyone that has been along for the journey and offered feedback, reported bugs and proofread the books to help me fix the many mistakes I made; I would not have been able to do it all without you. And special thanks to the mod team on our Discord server for making Lores of Magic cards, the web version of the books, files for Battlescribe and generally keeping the server peaceful and organized.

 

Can't think of a good ending for this post, so I'll just say: keep enjoying Warhammer in whatever form makes you happy, and paint your minis!