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I feel this question is relevant now, considering that GW just axed Warhammer Fantasy in favor of Age of Sigmar.

Let's say, in a hypothetical scenario, that either GW or the company that now owns Warhammer 40,000 announces that they will no longer be supporting it either as a game system or product line. No new model releases, no new books (not even Black Library), no Forge World, all mention of the old game is scrubbed from the company website. There's a new game that lets you use some of the same models, but it doesn't quite fill the same niche or provide the same style of play as Warhammer 40k. Where do you go from here?

Personally, I would keep playing. After all, now the game truly would be in the hands of the players! In my main gaming group we would probably just adapt the ITC tournament rules (or their future equivalent) for regular play, along with whatever house rules we feel are necessary. The second-hand market for miniatures would be massive, so people could still keep on buying/trading models, and the hobby aspect would definitely still be there. It would definitely give me more impetus both to expand my 40k collection into other armies (even beyond Dark Eldar) and to look into other tabletop games like X-Wing and Warmahordes, along with whatever else is out there.

Still, I would be sad to see it go. I may not have played 40k for as long as some people on this forum, but I still have fond memories of standing around a gaming table throwing dice and moving painted models. The demise of 40k would simply stand as another reminder that nothing in life is permanent, and no game system lasts forever. It's just a matter of how one chooses to move on with their lives from this loss.

I barely pay attention to GW's input to this hobby any more. But likely the people I play with would quit and then I would quit.

Disregarding the fact that doing a move like this would be a commercial suicide for the company and because I don't think that Kirby wants to spend his retirement days in courtrooms and possibly incarcerated I don't see this happening in a long time.

But as for the actual question, I think it'd be much less of a problem for players than it is with WHFB being squatted. There are more players who play 40k and to me it seems that the community itself is a bit more active. So in a way, "taking over" the game after its abandonment would be much more manageable. I have faith in the community to come up with a relatively unified ruleset that the majority of the players would continue using if the transition from GW-run 40k to community-run was over a longer period of time, say at least 6 months or so. This might sound a bit utopian to some, but I could see representatives from major community websites, tournament organizers etc. updating a living rulebook for 40k. If 40k was dropped overnight it'd be much more of a hassle, but most likely people would just continue using the most recent ruleset from that point on and organizing things in the community would just take longer.

I do think that people would keep on playing and that 3rd party miniatures would become a lot more accepted, some might even be integrated into the core armies over time. This kind of a move would in fact liberate a lot of players who feel too restricted with their armies, at least fluff-wise. Now you can have your female space marines and your kilt-wearing guardsmen if you want to! The "official" model availability would diminish, but considering how many miniatures there already are in circulation it wouldn't be impossible to come across new stuff for your army. I think it is certain that a lot fewer people would complain about 3D-printed or recast miniatures in this scenario.

It would be sad to see it go, I agree, but in a weird way it might also be good for the game itself, not to mention the community. I think that I'd continue playing, I still have fun playing the game with friends. I might even play more if we had a living rulebook and community-approved codexes. Who knows, maybe the game might even be balanced finally?

Make my own rules. Work with others to make rules that work. With no new models and no new codexes and no new stuff we can finally work on keeping a stable balanced system. That could have amazing community support.

A set of rules to modify their base rules so effective it could make its own game system. But free for all of those of us who do like 40k.

Then again I've always been a bit of a dreamer.

I would douse my Space Marines in kerosene and light them on fire.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I would douse my Space Marines in kerosene and light them on fire.

Be sure to film it and post it on youtube with a long teary-eyed rant!

Man, I really need to see that video.