‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – Please Mr. James Workshop, Can I Have Some News?

Let’s talk about the strangely quiet news front Warhammer: The Old World is going through right now.

Warhammer: The Old World is a great game. It’s now over two years old and has a lot of product out for it. It’s also got a thriving and growing community. This includes an ever expanding amount of events and tons of local clubs and groups. By all accounts its a successful game and has exceeded GW’s expectations (and my own!).  However over the last few months the news tap has turned off and the game has gone pretty quiet. So lets take a quick look at what’s going on and what needs to be done.

A Cornucopia of Goods

In the first two years of it’s release the Old World put out 18 books, 7 legacy PDFs, a number of FAQS and 10 full armies worth of models. That’s a ton of stuff. And it all came a blistering pace. Old World players are used to new books coming out like every other month. Sometimes faster. While relatively few of the models released have been new, many of them have not been available for a long time. All of this has led to plenty of news and releases to keep momentum for the game going, and growing.

Welcome To the Slow Season

All of this changed when The Fire Nation Attacked, this year. In March The Breaching of the Great Bastion released alongside some new Cathay models. This was the most recently release of new models and a new book. That was, by now, two  months ago. Since then we have had no news up upcoming models, or books or really anything major to do with Old World. Now there have been a couple of small model releases since then. Also in March we saw a small Orc & Goblin made to order release of older models. We also did just get a release of Cathay models this month. Now these are the same models that came out in March, just repackaged into individual boxes. While these are “news” and new releases, none of these models are new to the game or have new rules.

Now going two months without a big releases isn’t a huge deal, it’s not actually that long. Indeed I think for some players it feels longer only because we got used to the fast pace of Old World releases. The more worrying issue here for most people is, I think, the lack of news. The most recent book, The Breaching of the Great Bastion, was announced early last November. That is the actual last time we’ve had any real Old World news about upcoming rules/important releases. That was about 6 months ago, and that book has now been out for months. So for nearly half a year we’ve had no real news on the Old World and where it’s going, and for several months now we’ve actually had nothing to look forward to.

The Game Isn’t Dead

So what does this mean? Well, despite what some people online might have you think, the game is not dead. Nor do I think this is any sign of GW giving up on or abandoning The Old World. By all accounts the game is exceeded what GW thought it would do both in popularity and sales. I don’t think there is any real change of GW just walking away from the Old World or forgetting about it. Quite the opposite in fact.

Too Much Of A Good Thing

Now I’m going to speculate a lot here, but I suspect the lack of recent news is in some ways a good thing. It’s a result of the game’s success. I think there is a good argument that GW planned a slower release schedule for The Old World originally. However once it was shown to be successful they started to rush things out. That is why we got such a fast release schedule. It’s also why Cathay got 3 books, and two model releases in quick succession.

I think they accelerated when they were supposed to come out. Most new armies wait years for a second wave to come out. The Great Bastion Cathay models for instance are all copyrighted 2026 on their sprues, and people had their hands on these in January from what it seems. That means these were hot off the presses,  brand spanking new. It’s not uncommon for a GW model to sit around for a year or two before release. That didn’t happen here.

So given all that it’s just possible that we’ve… caught up with their production. We know there is a lag in development to production. If they rushed things out quicker than planned, they may not have had time to finish the next stuff. This would also account for the strange out of nowhere Marauder release.

Production Limits

Another thing to consider is simply production limits. We know the GW has had some production bottlenecks for a while. It has been hard for them to keep stuff in stock and produce enough product for all their games. Old World has a lot of models and boxes and that’s not an inconsequential strain on their production line. If the game has out sold their own internal predictions that also means they’ve likely had to a lot more production line space to it then they had planned, which could delay new releases.

On top of that this summer is seeing the release of 11th Edition Warhammer 40,000. As this is their flagship game and pretty much guaranteed to be the biggest release in years, you can bet it’s eating up a ton of their production bandwidth. They just might not have space/time right now to make a big Old World release. Everything could be pushed till after 11th, meaning July/August. Given this it would make sense that they haven’t announced something that far out.

What They Can DO

While this is all speculation, I think there is some evidence to suggest why we might have a sudden break in ToW news/releases. And it has nothing to do with the game doing poorly or being given up on. Still, Mr. James Workshop, is it too much to ask for something? Some crumb of news? Players just want something to look forward too and be excited about. We suspect, but I don’t think it’s been 100% confirmed, that we are getting another FAQ & Errata in June. Rumors say it’s a big one, and that could be good. But some kind of confirmation would be nice.

More than that however, I just want a roadmap. Just tell me if some more Old World books are coming out and roughly when. I’d love to know what the books are, but don’t have too. Are we getting a new edition next year? I know they won’t tell us that, but I’d like to know still! But just some info on the next Arcane Journal or a 2026 Matched Play Guide or anything new would be great. Even just some interviews/new missions etc. (anything!) would be nice. Just give us something be excited for! K Thanks.

Let us know what you think of this lack of news, down in the comments!

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers Warhammer: The Old World, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe mourned over loss of WFB for its entire hiatus, but has been reborn like a gaming phoenix with Warhammer: The Old World.