Age of Sigmar and Warhammer

A mini-editorial from me today. As someone who started out by purchasing a single gobbo back in the 1980's, my connection to the Warhammer World has been many decades long - although only just longer than 40k and Dungeons and Dragons.

Like others, I've been pouring over the images doing the rounds on the internet this weekend. I know some folks are sceptical and others hostile. I'm in the camp of liking what I'm seeing. This looks like a true overhaul and complete re-boot. I think this is exactly what the setting needs. The miniatures are good to see - I like the poses (even though they're snap-fit allegedly) and they seem to be very interchangeable for 40k conversions! Plus: there's war hammers everywhere! Nice!

And it does make me wonder if Warhammer 40k needs a new direction as well -- 40k seems like its getting crowded toward the end of the millennia. Whilst 30k is doing extremely well. Perhaps we could eventually explore 41k or beyond please?

I digress.

We've been seeing the withdrawal of the old Warhammer army books and miniatures (including the dryad pictured on this article). I will miss some of the army books and certainly some of the miniatures as the parts have been extremely useful for conversions. I'm sad about that. On the other hand, I'm very optimistic for the future of this line. It could be enough for me to get involved in fantasy again.

But I wonder if something else is happening here? Are we seeing the "freeing up" of the word "warhammer" in favour of "Age of Sigmar"? Does this correlate with the re-branding of the Games Workshop high street stores as being "Warhammer" stores? I'm starting to think so. Equally, I could be very off the mark here too.