From IP crackdowns to art, WarCom articles, and lore updates, has Games Workshop let AI take over Warhammer 40k in place of editors and mods?
Updated August 26th, 2025, by Rob Baer with new information about the Terminus Decree
Warhammer has always been about the human touch, sculptors hand-crafting minis, writers breathing life into the lore, and artists turning the grimdark into something beautiful. Lately, though, there’s a growing sense that Games Workshop might have outsourced more of that soul to the silicon side of things.
From the way they’re handling IP takedowns to the style of their Warhammer Community articles, there are more than a few signs that AI might be steering the ship.
IP Takedowns on Autopilot
It started with the bots. Reports popped up that GW had deployed automated crawlers to scour eBay, as early as 2023, for anything that might infringe on their intellectual property.
On paper, that sounds like smart IP protection. In practice, these bots may have led a broadside of cease-and-desist letters in 2,025 though the Brickell IP Group not just to sellers offering Warhammer products, but also to individuals with no connection to the hobby at all.
The kicker? Once that letter lands in your inbox, it’s your problem to sort out. AI might be saving GW’s legal team time, but for the people wrongly targeted, it’s a mess. They were recently granted a final judgment of $10 million against a ton of sellers, so maybe it worked.
From Nightbringer “Leak Patches” to AI-Polished Prose
If you’ve read GW’s recent “leak patch” articles, like the big Nightbringer reveal, or HH combat force product reveal, the style feels… different. There’s a polished-but-odd flow to the sentences, and an abundance of em dashes that look suspiciously like the calling card of AI-generated writing.
Most people wouldn’t bother to hold ALT and type 0151 to create one; they’d slap in a comma or break up the sentence. It’s not proof on its own, but when that style shift lines up recent editorial staff cuts, it’s hard to ignore.
The Hivestorm Connection
The earliest signs might trace back to the Hivestorm release, where players noticed the writing felt… off, and of course, some em dashes. On top of that, around the same time, they started putting art on their retailer support pages, which we think may have been AI-generated.
Combine that with text that reads like it’s been run through a machine polish, and you start wondering if the same pipeline has been at work for months.
Social Media & The Bot Invasion
Over on GW’s own Facebook pages, AI seems to be running wild in a whole different way. Bots are posting comments, fishing for connections, and sometimes dropping scammy replies, and the posts just sit there.
The moderators either aren’t catching them or aren’t even trying. For a company that’s built its brand on community engagement, letting automated junk pile up on its most public platforms sends a strange message.
When the Editors Go, What’s Left?
We already know GW let some of their White Dwarf editors go. If the same cuts are happening on the Warhammer Community side, it would explain the stylistic shift, the errors slipping through, and the oddly uniform tone in articles.
It’s one thing for a small indie publisher to lean on AI to help with product descriptions or basic web updates; it’s another when one of the most successful tabletop gaming companies in the world decides to save a few bucks by replacing seasoned writers and editors with algorithms.
Lore in the Age of Algorithms
The most unsettling possibility? The latest lore updates are being fed into AI-assisted systems, too. Warhammer’s lore is the backbone of the hobby; it’s the reason players paint, kitbash, and spend hours learning the history of factions like the Blood Angels or the Necrons.
If you needed more evidence that something robotic might be lurking in GW’s lore department, look no further than the recent mess involving the Grey Knights and the so-called “Terminus Decree.” This wasn’t just a typo or a lore tweak. This was a full-blown lore detour that had people scratching their heads so hard they hit the plastic underneath.
Are those em dashes we see in a printed GW codex book indicating it was written with AI assistance? Sure looks like it to us.
If this is where we’re headed, the Black Library better start checking who’s clocking in. When the lore starts to lose its human fingerprints, the whole setting risks feeling hollow.
GW Says No to AI in Golden Demon
Turns out, GW does draw the line somewhere, and it’s right at the steps of the Golden Demon stage. In a move that actually makes a lot of sense, Games Workshop officially banned AI-generated work from their premier painting competition. That means no machine-rendered basing, no AI-prompted diorama layouts, and definitely no sneaky text-to-texture nonsense on your converted Dreadnought.
The rule is pretty clear: if you didn’t paint it with your own shaky, caffeine-fueled hands, it’s not getting a trophy. And honestly? Good.
Golden Demon has always been about craft, skill, and spending way too long highlighting a single purity seal. Letting AI slide into that space would turn the whole thing into a tech flex instead of a talent showcase.
So, while the rest of the hobby might be grappling with robots writing lore or moderating Facebook pages, it’s nice to know the paintbrush is still sacred. At least for now.
Final Thoughts From Us:
Warhammer’s charm has always been equal parts models and storytelling. Sure, AI can churn out a serviceable article or a slick-looking piece of artwork, but it can’t replicate the layered humor, the sly digs, or the shared history that comes from human creators steeped in the game’s culture.
If GW really is letting AI take the wheel for writing, art, rules, and even moderation, the Warhammer community might need to start asking harder questions about where this road leads.
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