Editing Games Workshop (section)

===Minimize Effort, Maximize Rage===
In the year 2000, [[Warmaster]] was released. Designed by Based Priestley, it was essentially the Warhammer Fantasy version of Epic.
[[File:Gw_logo.png|thumb|400px|[[/pol/]] approves of the new logo]]
Fourth edition Warhammer 40k was released in 2004, and was more an advertisement for more models than an actual edition. It was advertised as being "backwards compatible", mostly because by itself it was barely a game. The rulebook was mostly sections of painted licensed plastic terrain and large models than anything else.

In 2005, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was given a second edition which was largely the same but was up to date with the lore, and had a better magic system. It was used more to advertise the wargame however than as a frontline product. This came with a single unified rulebook for Lord Of The Rings that included the (greatly) expanded line in the form of the One Rulebook to Rule them All.

Around this time the bulk of plastic Warhammer scenery was released, with almost all of it in Fantasy geared towards the Empire or Chaos (with some trees maybe representing Elves?) and 40k towards the Imperium or Chaos (with a few Necron and Tau pieces from Forgeworld). Games Workshop had seemingly decided who the main characters were, and some factions in either game from this point on only were mentioned in passing while receiving no support or updates.

Seventh edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles in 2006 luckily avoided this, with Battle For Skull Pass as the starter set between Dwarfs and [[Goblins|Night Goblins]]. This marked the last major change for Warhammer Fantasy, as the next update only really changed by adding more models and having minor rebalancing. Many fans of armies like Bretonnia and Wood Elves were left very unhappy their army was not updated in 7e, relying on outdated rules and thus being extremely underpowered all in favor of an event.
Looking to resurrect the dying Lord Of The Rings game, Games Workshop released Legions Of Middle Earth, an "expansion" suggesting buying larger groups of models to use in a theme force using the existing rules.

[[Storm of Chaos]] was released as the major event of the 2000's to much pomp and circumstance, supposedly being the canonical transition from the old into the new as Chaos made its great attempt to destroy reality while every faction strapped on their wardrums and marched into the clusterfuck. Players were selected to actually play the factions to drive the narrative, and the community was kept informed of what was going on. There was a problem however... Chaos couldn't win. The bulk of the story for the event was driven by the fact a fuckhuge Chaos army was invading, but the players for Chaos couldn't even manage to scrape out of the starting gate. So the narrative kept going that Chaos was a fuckmassive force that made all the other fuckmassive forces pretty much not worthy of note, and every time a player on another faction beat a Chaos player before turn four the story would state that the other player had ''barely'' delayed the forces of Chaos for only a brief time and at great cost, sometimes their complete destruction occurring anyway despite the actual battle report results saying no Chaos survived the battle and almost none of the other army was killed.

In the end, Chaos was given one last chance in the very last match as the defenders (meaning they had the advantage) in the last battle. Even this, they lost. Badly. In a phone-in result where Games Workshop made a desperate bid that fans would choose for Chaos to win and make all the actual promised narrative unnecessary, players chose to let Chaos deservedly lose. So the event ended with [[Grimgor Ironhide|a single crazy fucking Orc]] headbutting [[Archaon|Chaos Darth Vader]] in the balls, laughing at him, and walking away and thus saving the world in an ending befitting a Saints Row game. Games Workshop quickly stopped promoting the event and from that point on pretended it never happened. Combined with their Eye of Terror campaign for 40k, where Chaos conquered Cadia but lost their entire fleet in Battlefleet Gothic games (leading GW with nowhere to go aside from 'Chaos sits on a planet until the Imperium shoot them off of it') caused GW to lose faith in player-driven narrative, due to the fact [[derp|that the players were driving the narrative.]]

In 2008, fifth edition Warhammer 40k was released and borrowed heavily from 7e WFB as well as implemented a HEAVY emphasis on cover rules while making shooting much more important. In 2009 Games Workshop launched released War Of The Ring, which made the skirmish game into a full-fledged wargame. The rules were highly simplified to enable quick games with larger groups of models.