Games Workshop doubled down on their no-AI position, saying a human artist drew the 6-fingered Horus Heresy Space Marine.
Are you not buying it? GW’s new statement on the Horus Heresy Facebook page doubles back on their CEO’s January statement about no AI in the design process. Their Golden Demon ban also backed up that stance, handing the competition back to the miniature artists as well.
Either way, we covered the 6-fingers reveal when the MkIV art first dropped, and now the company’s answering back without actually answering the question.
The funny part is that the wording’s almost more telling than the content. “Go easy on our artists,” they said, and honestly, we are.
Nobody we’ve seen in the community is going after the artist(s); hobbyists have just been calling out the company and all their seemingly bad optics.
- GW’s defense: the Horus Heresy art style has been an artist’s blend of miniature photography and paint since 2012, and the sixth finger on the MkIV bolter hand is “unexpected drama,” not AI.
- The problem: GW hasn’t addressed the Red Gobbo goggle situation or the AI that keeps slipping into Warhammer Community articles, and that’s the part nobody can wave off as 2012 art-style “drama.”
- The pattern: the AI defense, the Edmonton GT scheduled the same weekend Armageddon launches, and recent Opens running at a third of capacity all point to GW’s teams not checking with each other before anything goes out.
So Here’s What GW Actually Said
The post is short, but the optics are still bad.
Does that Space Marine have an extra finger? Yes, but it’s not AI or early signs of mutation among the Traitor Legions! The Horus Heresy art style, since its first edition in 2012, involves an artist blending miniature photography with art to create a dramatic scene. In this case, adding a little unexpected drama. So please, go easy on our artists. They are only (and completely) human.
So basically, GW just told us the 6-finger Marine isn’t AI, it’s the photography-blend art style they’ve been running since 2012, and the sixth finger is “unexpected drama.”Their defense is a blend of photographic art style and paint, with the hand of an artist, in a dramatic scene. Fine. We’ve been looking at that style for over a decade, and we know what it looks like when it’s done right.
But sometimes it’s not, and as we saw with the Horus Heresy Inferno rulebook in 2017, with literal tourists in the background of some of its images.
The Hits Keep On Coming?
But here’s what GW didn’t address. They already got caught using AI art on the Red Gobbo promo, and the double-goggle situation wasn’t 2012 art-style drama; it was an AI tell. And it wasn’t a one-off either. AI keeps showing up in Warhammer marketing, in the Warhammer Community articles, and maybe even codex books.
The miniature-photography-blend explanation works for plenty of real Horus Heresy, sure.
We’ve put our favorite recent two pieces here, and both are the real thing and look like something GW is actually paying real artists to make. We grew up on art like that, and you did too!
The MkIV bolter hand image doesn’t look like either of them.
It looks like the rougher hand that gave us the Red Gobbo. Same tell, and problem. So when GW reaches for the 2012 art-style defense, it answers the wrong question. The question isn’t whether the style exists. We know it does, the question is whether THIS piece is in it.
And looking at that bolter hand, the answer’s no.
The Bigger Problem Is GW’s Departments Not Talking
Overall, this isn’t just about a single piece of art. It’s the same intercompany culture challenges we keep seeing from the company.
Sure, their CEO meant the ban when he said it back in January. We believe that. But the CEO can only ban what he knows his departments are actually doing. Nottingham design studio is one team. Warhammer Community is another. Marketing’s a third, and those teams clearly aren’t checking with each other before anything goes out the door.
Take the events side. GW scheduled a Grand Tournament in Edmonton, Canada, 6 months ago for the same weekend Armageddon launches. End of the 10th Edition, and the drop of the 11th Edition. Who’s burning a vacation day to play the old edition the week the new box ships?
Not many people, that’s for sure.
Also, shockingly, Warhammer Opens around the world have been running about a third of their listed capacity. 300+ seats available, 100-ish bodies actually showing up. But if you listen to the calls each week that are open to pretty much anybody in their “super secret” Tournament Organizer Discord, they throw around phrases like “sold out” and “at capacity” for the same events that were listed as having 320 spots available, but only 100 people showed up.
That math just ain’t mathin.
Same shape as the AI question, and ame with other things like the price hikes that have us wondering if GW needs to rethink the business model. Or even the canon rewrites that come out of nowhere. Nobody’s reading the room before they hit publish.
Maybe even worse, maybe they are checking the room and just stopping there…
Final Thoughts on GW’s AI Art Defense
Look, we want to believe GW. The Horus Heresy art we grew up on is real, it’s the reason most of us are here, and the artists who’ve been making it for thirty years deserve to have the company go to distance for them.
But “trust us” doesn’t work after the Red Gobbo, and it doesn’t work after everything we just talked about has been taken into consideration
If GW wants people to stop keeping receipts, the move’s pretty simple. Stop the AI slips on the marketing side. Actually enforce the ban that their CEO went on record with. Hire the artists you used to have, and let the work speak for itself.
It isn’t hard. It’s just the unsexy work that no one (at Games Workshop) wants to do anymore. Oh, wait, isn’t that what AI was supposed to replace in the first place?
🔗 Related Reads:
- Our coverage of the 6-fingers reveal
- The CEO’s original AI ban statement
- Despite the ban, AI keeps showing up
- AI in Warhammer lore and articles
- The Red Gobbo AI art situation
- The Maximus Battle Group reveal
- GW needs to rethink the business model
What do you think about Games Workshop’s AI art defense for the Horus Heresy 6-finger Marine?
