The rumor mill must be slowing down, because if you been following it lately some very peculiar things are going on. As with many rumors they some how they take on a life of their own. The current crop seems bent on using recent Games Workshop behavior as future fortune. Thus, it has created a big problem, one completely irresponsible because the actual rumors are not even rumors, but speculation thrown around in the trappings of a rumor. 

The irresponsibility grows as multiple rumormongers keep on posting variations on the same information, and the dissemination changes it more and more, becoming completely indiscernible from the original. Now we are left with people freaking out about what GW is going to do next. Speaking of GW, they should take part of the blame, because rumors only have legs because dumb blanket no public talky, if only we could get some response from them these sorts of things could be quickly squashed.

What am I referring to? It seems, one of the old guard rumor makers has gone on the record about what the Age of Sigmar means for Warhammer 40k.  The ramblings can be read in many different ways; speculation, rumors, or a thought exercise. It isn’t all that clear, leaving anyone to make whatever assumptions they want. Now this rumormonger hasn’t been right about things in quite a few years, and is rehashing an old rumor he had when he was relevant wrapping it in some “told you so” gloating. Years ago, he mentioned something about Codexes going away, and now with Age of Sigmar this rumor has new life. Adding to the fire, the current hot rumormonger echos the sediment. Beyond the codexes going away, the rumor has grown into 40k losing a point system just like Fantasy, and the fluff being rebooted.

This has created quite a backlash for many online, and isn’t helped by the latest comments from CEO of GW talking about going through the entire product line to review and reset things. Folks are running ragged trying to put together everything together to make some coherent picture for GW future behavior. Jumping to conclusions like Slaanesh is going to be Squated just because AoS fluff has the God captured, even though the fluff also specifically says Slaanesh’s followers are still around. At what point does rumormongering turn into just fear mongering?

Even if you take the initial rumor as pure speculation it doesn’t stop the millions of copy cat rumormongers to post the same thing with one added wrinkle just to make it seem like they have something new to add. We all know some online websites make money off GW rumors, because they do generate the largest most immediate amount of hits, plus are extremely easy to post. It is too easy for Internet to spread a rumor the create a daisy chain of retardation that becomes an unstoppable force.

It comes back to the root problem with the current state of rumormongering in the hobby: no one knows shit. Even the best rumormongers don’t know anything unless it is less than a month away. GW has been able to control the conversation by closing all the holes and moving to a rapid release schedule. Before you could have rumors flying everywhere because we had time to wait three-six months before the next codex release, now we can get two codex releases in one month! GW use to have a lot of finished products they would just sit on until the suits told them it was time for to release, leaving enough time in between for folks to spill the beans. Now, just because you break the latest White Dwarf pictures a few days early doesn’t make you a seer into what GW is going to do months down the road.

So, when you hear the GW CEO say he going to go through the product line it doesn’t mean he has already done it, and already decided to destroy codexes, or make AoS style rules for their most profitable game. If you noticed the limited edition books for every 40k release sell out worldwide in less than 48 hours, so I am pretty sure they are making their margins. With the rapid release schedule, it means armies are getting smaller model releases and the books like codexes help fill out a particular release. If you really look at, it seems GW is in fact moving to having more codexes than less; we just got Ad-mech, Harlequins, and Khorne Daemonkin books. To think the codex on the chopping block seems premature.

Now, I won’t be naive and say it isn’t possible, for the last 12 months fantasy was all Endtime releases, then with the second AoS dropped all old Fantasy books were instantly pulled from the shelves. Maybe the coming Forge World integration and Horus Heresy plastics will reveal something about the future of things, but I doubt we will know of any dramatic changes until a few weeks before they happen. Another thing to remember about rumors is what I like to call the Jes Goodwin Eldar Jet Bike case. Many years ago pictures flew around the Internet showing Jes Goodwin’s test sculpts for the Eldar Jet Bikes shown at a Games Day. Ever since those models appeared, without fail someone would claim they were coming out just around the corner.

Just because you say GW is getting rid of codexes in two years doesn’t mean your rumor carries the same weight if it happens 10 years in the future, even if you just keep on repeating it until it is becomes true. 

So, my message to players who are already freaking out, please don’t, because even if it does happen the snail pace at which GW makes gigantic changes you are looking at least another good 5-10 years. To all the rumormongers being either lazy or attention starved please stop, because the click baiting or reputation hits aren’t worth it. GW won the rumor wars time to let it go.