At last GW has a solution to all those old minis that are long in the tooth. Behold their fate in Warhammer Legends.

Live from the NOVA Open 2019, and the GW news is flowing. Here we go:

We have a new Warhammer Legends category for models being unveiled. What is Warhammer Legends you ask? Well, this is an important one, so we are going to quote them verbatim, then talk about it.

GW Official Text

“With so much awesome stuff on the way for Warhammer 40,000, you might be wondering what’s happening to some of the treasured older models that previously had rules in our Index books. While these might not have a place in our codexes any more, we know that they definitely have a place in your hearts, which is why you’ll be delighted to hear that we’ll be supporting them FOREVER with Warhammer Legends.

Your Imperial Space Marine? Rules, FOREVER. Your Chaplain on Bike? You can use him until actual Space Marine Chaplains on actual Space Marine bikes are invented in the year 30,000. And, to top it all off, they’ll be getting points, meaning if that’s how you like to balance your games, we’ve got you covered.

Every year, we review all of the points values (for all of the units) in Warhammer 40,000. We won’t be doing this for the Warhammer Legends, though. Once we’ve assigned them their final points, they won’t be part of that ongoing balance review – and we won’t be recommending Legends units for competitive tournaments. This means that event organisers and attendees alike can guarantee everything they’re gaming with is easily available and has been subject to the same rigorous balance and playtesting process. Of course, organisers are also free to run Legends events, allowing the use of the full classic range in their games.

What’s more, in the near future, we’ll be giving all Warhammer Age of Sigmar Legends the same treatment, meaning they too will be getting matched play points for your battles. You’ll see these rolled out in the new year. “

Thoughts

This is quite simply a program to sunset the older models that are no longer in production and remove them from organized play. Let’s go over what GW is doing in detail.

GW says that they will do a full annual audit of all units in 40k, tweaking their point values.

They will do this one final time for the Index units that are not in the codexes – assigning them points – THEN NO MORE

Models assigned to the “Warhammer Legends” list will NOT BE RECOMMENDED FOR TOURNEYS, i.e. competitive/matched play.

Obviously, TOs can do whatever they want, but let’s be blunt – outside of niche “anything goes” events these units are retired. They will still be great for Narrative and Open play of course, but we can see the writing on the wall.

Note that the Warhammer Legends Program will be extended to Age of Sigmar in due time, effectively allowing GW to sunset older WFB minis that are out of print.

This process also lets GW evolve the game over time, by slowly retiring models as they see fit, while still keeping them “technically” in the game. This is a broadly similar concept to what we see in other games like Magic the Gathering and X-Wing, giving the manufacturer a tool to control what is “officially” in the game over time.

With TO’s already chafing at having to deal with some older out of balance units, it was really only a matter of time.

“Indexio delenda est”