No more Warhammer Historical?

Logging onto Blogger today, I found lots of posts about GW's (rather abrupt) closure of Warhammer Historical. In retrospect, the closure is not a surprise; the lack of, for want of a better word, presence from WH didn't inspire much faith in their future.  GW's media policy meant that when new products were released by WH, they came as complete bolts from the blue.

Yet those last half dozen releases still strike me as odd.  Waterloo and Kampfgruppe Normandy can't have been cheap to print, yet they were on half price sale within six months or their release.  That Armies of Antiquity supplement was pretty large too and it only came out in March; were these printed months (or years) ago and were being shipped out to at the last moment?

My disappointment over WH is more over the future of their intellectual property rather than the removal of (what little support) GW actually gave them.  Rumours abounded over the last year that WH's latest releases were all part-time projects by dedicated employees.  Does that mean that GW will relinquish the copyright on the Warhammer Ancient Battles and other rules?  What about the FAQ/Resources/Card print outs etc?

So lot's of unanswered questions, most unlikely to get an answer.  Considering WAB was a behemoth in the ancients wargaming genre, I'm certainly sorry to see it go.  Maybe we'll need to organise a farewell event at the club or something. . .