Warhammer: 40,000‘s third and fourth editions were compatible and the fourth edition was largely intended as a refinement. As a whole, this state of the game lasted for nearly 10 years, and longer considering that while Fifth Edition is a shake-up, it was largely recognizable and shared many army books and rules with the previous two editions.

Warhammer 40,000 lasted in a recognizable place, as a game and as the center for a community, for 14 years.

This is no longer the case. Each edition of 40k since has lasted about an average of three years, with radical, sometimes fundamental, shifts in each edition.

This is obviously a headache. About as soon as players settle into a groove, everything is reset and thrown into uncertainty again. This obviously affects the health of the game when there’s no recognized “game” everyone means in conversation. But it also absolutely nukes any sense of community, fracturing players into separate editions as their armies may have functionally lost support with the almost season-like march of editions.

However, this problem is not limited to 40k. In remarkably short order, almost every Games Workshop line has had a jump to a new edition: Age of Sigmar (which also saw a huge amount of the flagship Sigmarite fraction removed from future legal play), and within the last few weeks, Middle-Earth Strategy Battles and the 40k skirmish spin-off Kill Team.

It particularly hurts in the case of Middle-Earth Strategy Battles. Widely considered the company’s best current game, it has survived regime changes and many radical restructurings of Game Workshop’s business and product strategy. Some of the more radical changes proposed may change too much, or leave too much of the line either unplayable or locked into specific army compositions.

Games Workshop needs to slow down. Let editions marinate, and a community gather, unless there is a severe problem that needs fixed. Keep gamelines current with campaign books, instead of total line refreshes that are difficult for both players and the company itself to keep up with.

For the health of these tabletop games (and the business), and especially for the sanity of players, slow down and let the players congregate. The sense of community is the most precious thing, easily lost, and these fast-paced edition turn-overs are fracturing the current community.

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Featured Image: Warhammer Community

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