My Axe to Grind with Age of Sigmar
Orginal Entry: 13th of September, 2026
Late to the party aside, and while I’ve certainly never kept my disdain for Age of Sigmar a secret, I’ve never actually catalogued my issues with the game, the way Games Workshop handled the Old World, and what I would have done differently had I been running the show at Games Workshop—all in one place.
So, eleven years after Warhammer Fantasy was canned, let me walk you through my very own book of grudges.
The Beginning of the End
It all started with the End Times campaign.
After multiple attempts by Archaon the Everchosen, the Warriors of Chaos finally won. The various mortal races of the Old World put aside their differences to fight the scourge of Chaos. Men, Dwarves, Elves, Ogres and even Orcs stood together against the greatest threat the world had ever faced.
But it would all be in vain.
Despite their combined strength, they had to lose for the rest of the plot to happen. And the plot, as eventually revealed by Games Workshop, wasn’t simply to retire an old game. It was to obliterate its entire setting from existence.
But before I continue: why was Warhammer Fantasy on the chopping block in the first place?
Why Did Warhammer Fantasy Die?
Ultimately, it wasn’t selling. Not nearly as well as its science-fiction counterpart, Warhammer 40,000.
Warhammer Fantasy was always the Lord of the Rings-inspired game and, more importantly, Games Workshop’s fantasy setting. It was the setting that first drew me to Warhammer as a hobby. A year later, I got into 40k too, but Fantasy was where it all began for me.
Over the next few decades, I would, like many others, collect multiple armies, read many of the Black Library novels and immerse myself in the Old World.
However, unlike 40k, there was a higher barrier to entry when starting a Warhammer Fantasy army.
With 40k, you could reasonably start playing with a character and a couple of ten-man squads. While the same was roughly true of Fantasy, the standard unit size of a Fantasy regiment was closer to twenty models.
So, for a new kid exploring the Fantasy world, you needed to buy and paint considerably more models before you could really get going. It didn’t stop me, and it didn’t stop plenty of other people either, but it must have been off-putting enough in the long run.
Which raises the obvious question: why didn’t Games Workshop change the rules to accommodate a smaller entry point? Why not create a skirmish game to introduce newer players to the setting?
They already had the foundations of one in Mordheim.
It was something they could have explored.
They didn’t. Something new was coming...
Why 40k Won
You also have to account for the fact that, to a child, science fiction is always cooler than fantasy.
Star Wars has more bright lights than The Lord of the Rings, and “cool” will always pull ahead in the eyes of a kid.
Fantasy universe's more adult themes, such as the Lord of the Rings, tend to resonate more with people who have experienced a little more of the world. But when you’re ten years old and choosing between a Space Marine with a chainsword and a bloke in a medieval helmet, the Space Marine is probably winning.
40k also has another enormous advantage: it’s effectively infinite.
There’s always another planet you can make up. Another system. Another war. Another alien species. Another reason for another battle.
Warhammer Fantasy, on the other hand, had a set map and a defined world. The game was largely restricted to a single continent, with places like Cathay and the Eastern lands barely explored.
Age of Sigmar tried to emulate 40k’s infinite possibilities by opening up a multiverse of realms.
And, for me, that came at a cost.
It lost the gravity of the setting.
40k can get away with an almost infinite universe because its scale is part of the appeal. But in the Old World, places mattered because there was only one of them.
It mattered that Altdorf existed.
It mattered when Altdorf was threatened.
And, crucially, it mattered when something happened to Altdorf.
There’s only one Altdorf.
In Age of Sigmar, settlement number 406 can be destroyed on one of several magical realms and, unless you’ve invested in that particular story, why should you care?
A city can be destroyed almost as quickly as it was imagined, perhaps to provide a footnote for a story in White Dwarf.
The Old World had its own problems. It could sometimes feel like a 90s TV show where everything had to reset at the end of the season and the set pieces needed to remain roughly the same for the next episode.
But Age of Sigmar went too far in the other direction.
There was no gravity to the losses.
I simply wasn’t invested.
Chasing the New Player
Games Workshop has also long felt like a company that doesn’t particularly value its older players.
We’ve already bought the models.
We’re savvy enough to buy second-hand, shop around, or use third-party models and retailers like Wayland Games to avoid some of Games Workshop’s more eye-watering prices.
How many more versions of the same miniatures can they realistically sell to us?
So GW chased the new player.
And, to be fair, I can’t wholeheartedly blame them for that.
But here’s the thing: kids these days don’t have the same attention span they once had, and it’s only got worse since 2015.
They needed something new and shiny on the fantasy side of the store. Warhammer Fantasy no longer cut the mustard.
And I understand that.
I understand why Warhammer Fantasy came to an end.
What I vehemently disagree with is how Games Workshop went about it.
Scorched Earth
As I’ve mentioned, I, like many others, grew up with the setting.
We read the books. We learned the history. We created head-canon characters and elaborate reasons for why our armies existed within the world.
But, to quote Linkin Park, in the end, it doesn’t even matter.
Everyone dies.
The world is destroyed.
Everything you fought for is obliterated.
Sod your head-canon.
Also, buy our new game.
Yeah.
It didn’t really work out as planned.
How could it?
Games Workshop pursued what can only be described as a scorched-earth policy towards Warhammer Fantasy.
The company offered us the half-baked idea that some of the setting’s main characters had somehow survived the obliteration of their world, their souls plucked from the wreckage and dumped into the multiverse of madness that is Age of Sigmar.
The aim, presumably, was to maintain a link between the old and new settings and piggyback on the popularity of established characters from a setting people already loved.
But in some cases, it had the opposite effect.
Sigmar, once a legendary figure within Warhammer Fantasy, became the protagonist of the new game.
The mystique was gone.
He was no longer the legendary figure of an ancient world.
He became, essentially, the ruler of Fantasy Space Marines.
And that wasn’t what I wanted.
What I Would Have Done
This is how I would have handled it differently.
I would have been honest with the Fantasy player base.
I would have explained that the game was suffering from a lack of players. I would have clearly stated that the company could no longer justify continuing to support it with new models and books.
But I wouldn’t have destroyed it.
I would have said:
"This is where Warhammer Fantasy ends for Games Workshop. The current edition—8th edition—is where official support stops. The game will remain playable. Every army you own remains playable. Perhaps, every once in a while, we’ll release a rules tweak if something genuinely needs addressing. But the future of the setting now rests in your hands, your heads and your hearts."
Then I would introduce the new setting.
And I would make it absolutely clear that this was a new game and a new universe.
"In the beginning, existing Fantasy models could be used in the new game while we [Games Workshop] slowly release new miniatures for the new setting. Some of those new miniatures might even one day find their way into your old Fantasy armies as proxies. And, most importantly, we would encourage you to keep playing Warhammer Fantasy. Keep fighting your battles. Keep waging your wars. Keep telling your stories."
Why Would That Have Been Better?
I’m not demanding continued support for a game that wasn’t selling.
I’m asking for a dignified end.
Something that leaves the door open.
The characters we created to lead our armies would still be there.
The characters we read about in novels could still retire into the sunset, living comfortable lives with whatever gold they managed to escape Lustria with.
Ultimately, the “end” of the setting we grew up with would be left open.
Instead, Games Workshop told us that everyone died.
Florin and Lorenzo from The Burning Shore didn’t live happily ever after with their Lizardman gold.
They died.
Like everyone else on the planet.
It feels vindictive.
Imagine if The Lord of the Rings had ended this way.
Tolkien creates The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Millions of people invest their time in the setting and support it financially.
Then Simon Tolkien comes along, writes a continuation and has a meteor hit Middle-earth, destroying everything.
All to set the scene for his new story.
Frodo’s success?
Meaningless.
Aragorn’s coronation?
Redundant.
Legolas’ remaining years in Middle-earth?
Who cares?
He died in a fireball or something.
Buy my new novel.
That’s essentially how the End Times felt.
I believe Games Workshop wanted a link between the old setting and the new one—to entice existing players across to Age of Sigmar.
But the way they went about it had the opposite effect on me.
I decided I would never touch their new game out of principle, regardless of whether it was actually an improvement.
During my time in the hobby and working at one of their stores, I have collected an army or warband in almost all of their games and settings. Blood Bowl, Battle Fleet Gothic, The Lord of the Rings and even the 54mm scale Inquisitor.
Had they given The Old World a dignified ending, this website would have undoubtedly been filled with Age of Sigmar blogs and miniature collections.
But the Old World Wasn’t Really Dead
Except, of course, it wasn’t the end of the Old World.
Games Workshop’s new setting simply wasn’t as deep as what had come before.
Battles had no gravity from the beginning. Nobody was invested.
So the old guard—the greybeards who had supported the company for so long—stuck with their Warhammer Fantasy armies.
The community created The 9th Age: a fan-made continuation of the game following on from the final official edition, 8th.
And then there was Total War: Warhammer.
A continual success, built around the Old World.
Games Workshop attempted an Age of Sigmar video game, but people kept wanting the Old World.
Because the Old World had something Age of Sigmar didn’t have at launch:
History.
It had depth.
It had characters people cared about.
It had places that meant something.
It was a setting people had invested years of their lives in.
And despite the lack of multiverse nonsense, it deep and rich in lore.
Eventually, Games Workshop caved.
They announced the return of the Old World.
A game called The Old World.
Many old models would be reproduced, albeit at some fairly ridiculous prices considering the age of some of the sculpts—and considering there are plenty of newer, arguably better models available elsewhere.
Games Workshop had noticed that it was being left behind.
People had stuck with the old setting rather than embracing its flimsy replacement.
Third-party companies had produced brilliant models for The 9th Age, while Total War: Warhammer continued to roll out expansion after expansion based on the setting Games Workshop had supposedly killed.
Eventually, we saw the Old World return.
But here’s the thing.
They didn’t change the ending.
They simply set the new game hundreds of years before the End Times.
So what’s the point?
Why I Haven’t Jumped Back In
That’s why I haven’t really jumped at the return of The Old World.
Well, that—and the fact that Games Workshop announced that certain armies wouldn’t be supported. More on that in a second.
But at the end of the day, we know how it ends.
Why should I collect a new army?
Why should I invest in the setting?
Why should I invest my time in the story?
Everyone dies.
Why should I invest my time in Frodo and the Ring if I know it’s all in vain anyway and Simon's meteor is inevitable?
That’s the problem.
The Old World is back, but the Old World still has an expiration date.
Unsupported Armies
When The Old World finally returned, I had assumed it would be a complete return to Warhammer Fantasy.
However, right from the beginning, Games Workshop made it clear that certain races would be completely unsupported.
Races like the Lizardmen.
It felt like another barrier to entry all over again.
I was genuinely poised to buy the new starter set. Not because I particularly wanted a Bretonnian or Tomb Kings army, but because I wanted to show my support for the return of one of Games Workshop’s best settings.
But no sooner had I learned that my favourite faction would be unsupported, my interest died quicker than you can create a new settlement in Age of Sigmar.
Cynically, once again, I believe this comes back to Age of Sigmar.
The poster boys of the returning Old World were the Bretonnians and the Tomb Kings. Neither has a direct equivalent in the Age of Sigmar model range.
You could make an argument that the Tomb Kings have some similarities with the Ossiarch Bonereapers, but those similarities are, at best, superficial.
And that means the people overseeing Age of Sigmar don’t have to worry about Bretonnian or Tomb King sales eating into their AoS bottom line.
Lizardmen, however—and I’m not calling them by their stupid new trademarkable name—are a different story.
If the Lizardmen existed as a fully supported faction in both settings, there would presumably be a risk of AoS players simply moving some of their money and attention over to The Old World.
And this is where my ire spikes once again.
Lizardmen are a Fantasy race, a Warhammer Fantasy Race.
They became popular in the Old World.
They have since been effectively hijacked by Age of Sigmar.
And, to be fair, I could forgive that. Providing they were not locked away in the newer setting.
What I find much harder to forgive is the suggestion that they have been deliberately withheld from The Old World precisely because Games Workshop doesn’t want them interfering with the sales of the newer game.
The faction that I grew up with is being kept out of the setting where it originated, seemingly to protect what I consider the lesser version of that fantasy setting. They could easily, as the range is naturally updated, create Suarus Warriors that work just as well on round bases as they do rank and file.
And that brings me right back to the original problem.
Games Workshop didn’t just kill Warhammer Fantasy.
It killed the setting, brought it back, and then told some of us that we could have it back—but not the bits we actually wanted.
At some point, you have to wonder whether they really understood why people wanted the Old World back in the first place.
So How Would I Repair the Damage?
I’d start a campaign in The Old World.
One in which the ultimate narrative is to split the timeline. Change the trajectory of the End Times.
Free the Old World from the inevitability of destruction.
Create a branching timeline in which the End Times are no longer inevitable.
It would still allow Age of Sigmar to exist.
I don’t personally care about Age of Sigmar, but that doesn’t mean its fans should have their setting taken away either.
Give them their universe.
Give us ours.
Give the Old World hope.
And this is actually something I’ve toyed with before.
The idea of introducing the Sphinx into Warhammer Fantasy Battles — ancient beings, older than the kingdoms of Slaan, whose purpose is not conquest or domination, but the preservation of time itself.
Time keepers. Or dare I say it, the Old Ones.
Guardians who have watched the same cycles repeat across millennia and understand that the End Times aren't simply another event waiting to happen. They are a point on a timeline.
And perhaps that timeline can be changed.
Maybe the Sphinx have known for centuries that the world is heading towards its destruction. Maybe they have been quietly preparing for it, manipulating events from the shadows, searching for a way to prevent the inevitable.
Or maybe they don't even know if they can succeed.
That's the important part.
I don't think The Old World needs to promise players that the End Times will never happen.
It just needs to give them a reason to fight against them.
Imagine playing a campaign where every battle has a purpose beyond simply winning territory or killing your opponent. Perhaps your army is fighting because somewhere in the world, ancient forces are trying to alter the course of history. Perhaps victories buy time. Perhaps defeats bring the world one step closer to the fate it was always supposed to suffer.
Maybe the Sphinx are right.
Maybe they're wrong.
Maybe, in the end, the End Times still happen.
But for the first time, the players aren't simply marching towards a predetermined conclusion.
They're fighting to prevent it.
And that's the difference.
Because if Games Workshop has learned anything from the last eleven years, it should be this:
People don’t just invest in miniatures.
They invest in worlds.
They invest in stories.
They invest in characters.
They invest in the battles they’ve fought and the stories they’ve created themselves.
And when you tell those people that none of it mattered because everyone died anyway, you shouldn’t be surprised when they decide to clock out completely.
Give them a reason to believe their battles matter.
Give them a future worth fighting for.
Even if that future is only a possibility.
Because sometimes, hope is all a setting needs to survive.
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