Editing Advancing the Storyline (section)

==Warhammer Fantasy==
Unlike Warhammer 40k, the plotline of [[Warhammer Fantasy]] <s>d̶o̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶d̶v̶a̶n̶c̶e</s> did advance, but in small increments - which could amount to something big. Each edition and army book usually adds a little more fluff to the past (and maybe a retcon or two), rarely an update to the big prophesied battle between good and evil that decides the settings future, and a plot hook in the present. For example, the 8th edition [[Vampire Counts]] and [[High Elves]] army books ([[Codex]] for 40k players) added a new story to the end of the army timelines that mentions how [[Mannfred von Carstein]] kidnapped the [[Everqueen]]'s daughter Aliathra, and is going to sacrifice her like a Frazetta painting to bring back the setting's big BIG bad [[Nagash]] and that the greatest hero of the High Elves, Tyrion, has saved her and is riding at the head of a large High Elf army about to clash with a large Undead army.

Smaller updates (mainly gimmicks to sell a book and some models) like [[Storm of Magic]] will add a whole new event that extends the "present day" by a few months to a year. The infamous [[Warhammer Online]] was entirely non-canon which may have been what doomed it from the start. Regardless, Fantasy wasn't, for a long time, THAT adventurous about advancing its plotline, but advancing it ''some'' didn't sink the ship. Well, not until...

===[[The End Times]] and [[Age of Sigmar]]: The Ultimate Arguments against Advancing the Storyline===
In late 2014, GW finally decided to advance the storyline just as the players wished. The original consensus of this was that it was pretty cool. The fools...

The Nagash book introduced these major changes by bringing back [[Nagash]] as a superpower in his own right. Heroes were killed and Chaos was for once not the big title threat, except to the Empire, since Nagash was getting ready to kick them out and take the world for himself. Many non-playable human nations were decimated and Nagash led all the Vampire Counts to Nehekhara. After a series of lengthy battles he overthrew Settra, forced most of the Tomb Kings to serve him and effectively destroyed Nehekhara's cities so it ceased to exist as a nation. In the epilogue, Settra got offered a Faustian bargain by the Chaos Gods that could turn the tables on Nagash.

The Glottkin book saw the Empire become leveled between the titular triplets, Festus, and the others. Kurt Helborg filling in for Emperor as Kark Franz was MIA following his duel with Walach in the previous book. Little else happened except an undead cameo with Vlad laying the groundwork to become Vampire Emperor. It... didn't work, though he made progress. The epilogue had Karl Franz, imbued with the power of the heavens, give a dire warning.

The Khaine book was the book where the outlook of the End Times started whipping around. All of a sudden, Teclis became a master manipulator bar none, [[Malekith]] threw Naggaroth away like a used tissue and was revealed to be the true king all along with everyone else being cheating usurpers. Tyrion became an utter asshole and turned into Khaine incarnate, only to die like a bitch to Alith Anar. The end result meant that Ulthuan was destroyed and all the elves got slapped into a single army, which caused frustration among the separate bases. The epilogue has Araloth hook up with Lileath and leave the Warhammer world to rebuild in another dimension.

Thanquol just made things even worse, as the rest of the Empire finally collapsed with [[Valten]]'s death and the loss of Ulric's flame. After being worked over by the Skaven, Lustria and the Southlands got blasted by meteors, the surviving Lizardmen go "Thanks for all the fish" and fly off into space. Speaking of Skaven, they destroy everyone who isn't the Empire, Bretonnia or elves offscreen (and Bretonnia is also destroyed offscreen as well), and more Dwarfs get chopped. Also Gobbla got eaten, cue Goblin tears. The epilogue has the Skaven conquer Karaz-a-Karak and ally with the forces of Chaos.

Now Archaon was where shit broke. To make a long story short, Chaos wins and everyone dies, and there wasn't a damned thing anyone could do to stop it. And that they had been doing this to every universe that had preceded the then-current one, so they would just keep winning over and over again no matter what anyone did about it. By the end of the book, the entire Warhammer World had ceased to exist and every army and named character was killed off if they weren't already dead. In short, it was what GW wanted Storm of Chaos to be, but without that irritating "player interaction" messing up the plot they had planned out. The epilogue had a mysterious figure riding what's left of the ruined world perform an unspecified miracle.
 
In a sense, one could see this as a monkey's paw wish; the fanbase finally got the Fantasy setting to advance, but it led to said setting being destroyed and replaced by a completely different setting. One could fearfully wonder now just what would happen if the End Times treatment happened to 40K, and the general consensus is "even the complete stagnation we have now is better than their insane ideas of progression." But if Games Workshop does the same to 40k, it likely means they're going out of business, because that setting has, among other things, their [[Space Marines|creator's pets]]. (And as it turns out, several of their new books seem to be showing disturbing parallels to The End Times...so make of that what you will.)

Age of Sigmar added another monkey wrench into the works; while the plot is nominally progressing with the promise of further developments in the future, it's not necessarily going to be a good thing given GW's track record thus far, and beyond a few shared characters who lack most of their original defining characteristics, most of the "new" Warhammer setting is barely recognizable as being connected to the old one at all. Two long-time factions, Bretonnia and the Tomb Kings, [[FAIL|were squatted without even an explanation]]. In short, advancing the storyline only works when the people writing it aren't absolutely clueless on how to do so, and GW has shown absolutely no signs of being remotely competent enough to pull it off. Unfortunately, recent events in 40k suggest Geedubs has learned nothing from the experience and is on the verge of doing the same thing again.

While the game has certainly improved since its release, especially in the gameplay sector, it took a very long time for the setting and lore to reach a comparable state to that of Fantasy. This (coupled with the destruction of a setting that was well-liked narratively, if not competitively) means Age of Sigmar can still be seen as an against to advancing the storyline (though what the New Games Workshop(tm) has so far shown us regarding 40k is [[Skub|promising]]). Then again if you read the beginning of this section that's what we all thought about Fantasy.