40k players say New Recruit is using AI to rewrite Warhammer rules after GW pressure changed how the army builder handles official text.
GW’s official rules wording has been pulled from New Recruit for legal reasons, but players have already found a workaround using a feature built into the New Recruit app itself. All that legal pressure over rules wording, and the way to load the original community data is sitting a couple of menus away.
Players on Reddit are already convinced the replacement descriptions were written by AI. Maybe they were, but New Recruit hasn’t confirmed that or explained how it’s writing the new text. Either way, if you use New Recruit Warhammer lists to check rules during games, you may be looking at descriptions that may not match GW’s original wording for much longer.
- What’s happening: New Recruit says legal reasons forced official rules text for certain games off the platform, and it’s swapping in its own descriptions of how each rule works.
- What we have seen so far: Players are calling the new text AI-written, and the community is already loading the BSData repo from GitHub to get the full dataset back.
- What’s next: Nobody knows if GW stops at New Recruit or looks at the BSData repo next, so treat that part as speculation for now.
New Recruit Confirms Official Rules Text Was Removed for Legal Reasons
On November 2, 2026, New Recruit posted a notice called “Rule changes on New Recruit,” explaining why the official wording had disappeared:
“Due to legal reasons, official rules texts for certain games are no longer displayed on New Recruit.”
Now New Recruit is replacing those rules with its own descriptions of how each one works. Most current games are getting the new text first, with older games coming later.
So, until your game gets updated, you might open a datasheet and find a blank description or a “[text removed]” tag where the rule used to be. Which isn’t particularly helpful when you’re trying to check an ability in the middle of a game.
The replacement descriptions are English-only for now, too. Unit names and rule names still appear in your selected language, but the actual descriptions show up in English. The good news is New Recruit says translations are planned.
These aren’t just copies of GW’s rules with a few words changed. New Recruit is creating separate descriptions meant to explain what each rule does without reproducing the official wording.
We don’t know exactly what prompted the change or even if it had anything to do with GW at all.
Did Games Workshop Send New Recruit a Legal Letter?
According to information shared in the Auspex Discord, New Recruit received correspondence from Games Workshop saying the rules text displayed in the app couldn’t match GW’s wording.
That would certainly explain the change, but New Recruit hasn’t confirmed the letter, and it’s official notice doesn’t mention GW by name or say what correspondence led to the decision.
Players had already noticed something was going on back on October 23, too, when WarhammerCompetitive users spotted redacted rules in New Recruit. A notice also supposedly appeared that apparently pointed to legal demands from GW.
At the time, a New Recruit developer reportedly said that particular redaction was a mistake and would be fixed. Then, less than two weeks later, New Recruit announced that official rules wording was being removed more broadly.
The timing is interesting, but without confirmation from New Recruit, the reported GW letter is still just that: community reporting.
How to Restore the Full 40k Data in New Recruit
New Recruit already lets you add game data directly from a GitHub repository. It’s a normal feature, documented by the app itself, and the process is pretty simple:
- Open New Recruit’s game/system management
- Pick Add from GitHub
- Paste the repository address
- Let New Recruit download and convert the files
New Recruit says data added this way is displayed in full, without filtering.
Players on the Auspex Discord and Reddit are using that feature to add the BSData/wh40k-11e repository, bringing back the unchanged community dataset.
According to these users, existing lists should keep working. New Recruit’s documentation also says repository updates are picked up automatically once you’ve added the data.
For 11th Edition players, the entire workaround could come down to pasting one GitHub link.
To us, this has played out pretty funny too, right? GW reportedly tells New Recruit it can’t display the original rules wording. New Recruit starts writing its own descriptions. Then players want the original text back, and someone points out that the app already lets them load the community data directly.
So there is an easy workaround with no digging through developer tools or special software. Plus, there’s even a tutorial explaining how to do it becasue it’s a regular New Recruit feature.
Could Games Workshop Target the BSData GitHub Repository Next?
If New Recruit has to stop displaying GW’s exact rules wording, what happens to the GitHub repository that still has the community dataset?
For now, we haven’t found anything showing GW has taken action against the BSData 11th Edition repository.
As of November 3, it’s still public, still receiving updates, and still accepting issues. But if copying GW’s exact wording is the problem, you’ve got to wonder whether that repository could eventually get the same attention.
So for now, nobody can say for sure whether GW will stop with New Recruit.
But game mechanics and the exact wording used to describe those mechanics aren’t necessarily treated the same way under copyright law. We’re not going to pretend we’re copyright lawyers, but that distinction could help explain why New Recruit is changing its rules descriptions instead of getting rid of the army builder entirely.
The app can apparently still tell you which units you can take, how many models are in them, their points, wargear, and army construction restrictions. The Danger Zone seems to be reproducing GW’s written rule descriptions word for word.
GW has spent years trying to bring 40k rules into its official app, but community tools remain popular because they offer what players want specifically.
Things like better list building, easier army management, Crusade support, community corrections, cross-device access, and different ways to look at the rules all make a difference when you’re actually using these apps.
For now, GW’s exact wording is removed from New Recruit’s hosted data, and players have responded by loading the GitHub version themselves.
So, between this and Wahapedia, you can see why the whole digital rules situation in Warhammer is still such a mess.
Why Rewritten 40k Rules Could Cause Problems
Well, Anyone who’s played enough 40k knows how quickly a game can turn into a rules discussion over one word. Rewriting those rules without changing how they work isn’t nearly as simple as making the sentences easier to read.
Take a made-up example. Say a rule originally reads “Each time a model in this unit makes an attack,” but the rewritten version says “Whenever this unit attacks.”
Those sound pretty similar at first. Depending on the rule, though, they could produce two completely different interactions.
Think about how often players argue over words like model, unit, attack, target, eligible, after, when, once, each, and until.
Swap one of those words while paraphrasing an ability, and you might change what it actually allows. You could understand the general idea perfectly while still playing the rule incorrectly.
If AI is involved, there’s even more reason to be careful. AI can produce wording that sounds equivalent without necessarily preserving every restriction or interaction in the original text.
Maybe the timing changes. Maybe an ability affects different models, an exception disappears, or suddenly more targets are eligible than before. A restriction could get dropped, something that originally said “may” could sound mandatory, or an interaction between two rules could get interpreted incorrectly.
And those aren’t small differences when you’re playing competitively becasue the rewritten version could even sound clearer than GW’s original, making it harder to spot that something changed.
Final Thoughts on the New Recruit 40k Rules Change
We still don’t know if AI has anything to do with New Recruit’s rewritten rules. What we do know is that legal pressure has changed how one of the community’s army builders handles GW’s wording, and players have already figured out how to keep using the original community data.
New Recruit can write its own descriptions, GW can keep its exact wording out of New Recruit’s hosted data, and players can still load the BSData repository through GitHub.
As long as that option keeps working, it’s hard to see this as the end of New Recruit for 40k. It really just comes down to another round of GW and unofficial rules tools trying to coexist, while players keep using whichever option makes managing their armies easier.
The next questions are whether New Recruit will explain how it writes and checks these descriptions, and whether GW ever takes action against BSData. And if the replacement wording really is AI-generated, there’s still that other problem.
When a single word can change how an ability works, would you trust a machine to rewrite the rules you’re using at a tournament?
🔗 Related Reads:
- Best Free 40k Army Roster List Builder Apps Guide
- BattleScribe Alternatives: 40k Army List Builder Apps
- Warhammer 40k 11th Edition Rules
- GW Paywalls Their 40k Army Builder App
- Games Workshop Targets Cosplayers and LARPers
- Games Workshop vs Warhammer Creators on YouTube
Would you trust New Recruit’s rewritten 40k rules at your next event, or are you loading the BSData repo from GitHub?
