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I would be surprised if 9th. won't be out very late 2018 or early 2019.

GW sped up the release of 8th. so they could get to this point with most codices out.

Releasing a codex is a big driver for selling models and I think 9th. will be a test to see if they can release with even more narrow release windows to maximize profits.

Now ideally none of this would happen and GW would change their model, but I can't see that happening any time soon....

Ehh - more than likely we will get redone codexes in this eddition - space marines will probably get the first one. We will call it 8.5 though - not 9th edition.

A lot of people seem to think that GW makes their money off of codices. GW makes its money selling plastic. Even if you assume rules are the only thing that sells models and no one just buys the stuff they think looks cool, campaign books can do that just as easily as codices. I'm betting it'll be quite a while before we see 9th edition.

 Draccan wrote:

I would be surprised if 9th. won't be out very late 2018 or early 2019.

GW sped up the release of 8th. so they could get to this point with most codices out.

Releasing a codex is a big driver for selling models and I think 9th. will be a test to see if they can release with even more narrow release windows to maximize profits.

Now ideally none of this would happen and GW would change their model, but I can't see that happening any time soon....

I can't see this happening. GW finally climbed out of it's PR blackhole that it was stuck in for so many years (and are reaping financial benefits based on their stock price). Whenever another minis company did something somewhat shady the phrase "Well that was bad but at least they are not GW" was thrown around a lot locally and online. So doing something like that so soon would be risky... I mean as evidenced by 7th editon people were more than willing to say enough is enough and go search for greener pastures (myself it happened when 6th came out and I am just a recently returning player)

 EnTyme wrote:
A lot of people seem to think that GW makes their money off of codices. GW makes its money selling plastic. Even if you assume rules are the only thing that sells models and no one just buys the stuff they think looks cool, campaign books can do that just as easily as codices. I'm betting it'll be quite a while before we see 9th edition.

The make a huge amount of money off of codex. Plenty of people don't buy new models and just play with their old ones. At 50$ a pop and with most people who buy models only supplementing their armies at this point. GW probably makes something like 10% or 15% of their profits off of codex/CA/rule books/campaign books. It is no mystery why they are still around in a digital age. It makes them lots of money.

Really? People actually think there will be an entire new edition?

look at AOS. They have been around years now and a full reboot is probably just not going to happen in either game. There may be shake-ups, but no 'new edition' will be out for a long time. There might be new rulebooks and all that, but the core will stay, that much I am almost certain of.

It's seems like 8th is around to stay which is good.

It can be hard to forget but 8th is just a 4 page ruleset. Which is free. Everything else comes from codexes so there is zero need to make a new edition in GW eyes and any business sense as you can adjust the game through codexes FAQs, and chapter approved.

Wayniac wrote:
I think it will be a living rules set like they are doing with AOS. It won't be "9th Edition" they will just adjust the rules frequently. We are done with editions IMHO.

I tend to agree. "9th edition" when it comes will just be GW putting all the stuff from chapter approved in one book for simplicities sake

 Xenomancers wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
A lot of people seem to think that GW makes their money off of codices. GW makes its money selling plastic. Even if you assume rules are the only thing that sells models and no one just buys the stuff they think looks cool, campaign books can do that just as easily as codices. I'm betting it'll be quite a while before we see 9th edition.

The make a huge amount of money off of codex. Plenty of people don't buy new models and just play with their old ones. At 50$ a pop and with most people who buy models only supplementing their armies at this point. GW probably makes something like 10% or 15% of their profits off of codex/CA/rule books/campaign books. It is no mystery why they are still around in a digital age. It makes them lots of money.

I'd be curious to know where you got those numbers. It's not consistent with what I've seen online or in the local stores.

8th definitely feels like a long-term project for GW. I would be baffled if 9th drops next year. I honestly feel like they'd do an 8.5 edition before they do a 9th, mostly because GW seems to have gotten rid of the "burn everything and start over" idea of fixing things.

After all the codexes have dropped, I believe we’ll see an 8.1 sort of revision - something a little more involved that Chapter Approved, but less than a full-on edition change. Maybe an updated rules pamphlet and a few of the more disappointing codexes (Space Marines, Grey Knights) getting an updated copy.

If GW has really changed, we won’t see 9th edition for about 5-6 years, at least.

I don't think we will see 9th for a long time. My understanding is that 8th/AoS is the default GW system now and the updates will come from Chapter Approved and the living errata/FAQs.

 EnTyme wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
A lot of people seem to think that GW makes their money off of codices. GW makes its money selling plastic. Even if you assume rules are the only thing that sells models and no one just buys the stuff they think looks cool, campaign books can do that just as easily as codices. I'm betting it'll be quite a while before we see 9th edition.

The make a huge amount of money off of codex. Plenty of people don't buy new models and just play with their old ones. At 50$ a pop and with most people who buy models only supplementing their armies at this point. GW probably makes something like 10% or 15% of their profits off of codex/CA/rule books/campaign books. It is no mystery why they are still around in a digital age. It makes them lots of money.

I'd be curious to know where you got those numbers. It's not consistent with what I've seen online or in the local stores.

Just an estimate based on what I see at my local shops - the majority of the players in my area don't buy models very often but they will buy the codex/campaign books/ect for their army when it comes out.


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 Stormonu wrote:
After all the codexes have dropped, I believe we’ll see an 8.1 sort of revision - something a little more involved that Chapter Approved, but less than a full-on edition change. Maybe an updated rules pamphlet and a few of the more disappointing codexes (Space Marines, Grey Knights) getting an updated copy.

If GW has really changed, we won’t see 9th edition for about 5-6 years, at least.

Yeah - this is in line with what I am thinking.

 EnTyme wrote:
A lot of people seem to think that GW makes their money off of codices. GW makes its money selling plastic. Even if you assume rules are the only thing that sells models and no one just buys the stuff they think looks cool, campaign books can do that just as easily as codices. I'm betting it'll be quite a while before we see 9th edition.

Once people have bought models they don't tend to buy them again unless new and better versions come out, but when you change edition everyone has to buy the books all over again.

7th edition was just a slightly tweaked 6th that's what put me off playing in 7th, I found the shooting focused edition extremely boring and wasn't going to go through it again.

8th is a beta test they are charging you to try out when they think they've got it kind of right 9th will come and you'll be buying all those books again, they'll still be over priced copy paste jobs and will be obsolete in two years.

Seriously people is arguing GW makes a good part of their profit from books? Not only is the difference in the profit margin from miniatures to book inmense, this "People just buy some models and they don't buy more" is nonsense.

Who does that? Most of the people doesnt stop buying models as long as they are an active player, maybe they are starting new armies, expanding their existing forces, even branching to other GW games.

This "He keeps playing with his 20-years old models and only buy books" players are just a minority, that makes most of their purchases from 2 hand markets, ebay, etc... (Nothing wrong with this people of course, but they aren't a significant part of the community, at least not one that affects GW sales)

same thing as always, when 8th becomes the bloated mess that happens to previous editions, they will make a new one, same as AoS. While those who love 8th will want to crow about it being the last edition and the haters saying it will be gone by 2019 the reality is no game stays constant, 8th will go away eventually and then we can all love/hate 9th.

I hope they just continue to patch it for a while (maybe until 2020 or 2022?) but at some point i probably do want a new edition to clean up things again and tighten up the rules some more.

That, or i'd be okay with 8.5 type rulebook that is just 8th with 2-4 years of chapter approved and FAQs written into it.

 Formosa wrote:


Yep, if 7th was as unpopular as the dakka community claims the company would have folded the edition within months, it obviously sold well enough for the mountain of terrible supplements it got, where as 30ks biggest barrier was cost, 30k aptly proves that the main rules were fine, it was the codexs that totally ruined 7th 40k for a lot of people, in spite of that it sold and was popular the world over, just not with us.

Still the funniest thing for me was primarily 40k sites wants heresy in 8th, where as primarily 30k sites wanted it to stay with 7th, both have merits.

Ditching 7th within months would not have been feasible for GW. Considering it probably takes them 2-3 months (or more, who knows?) to make a codex based on index datasheets, it would seem 8th edition was in the works at least 1 year if not 2 years ahead of its release which would mean that 7th only lasted 1 year before GW couldn't take it anymore and decided to scrap the whole thing and start over. 1 year for GW is not a lot of time.

I don't believe there will be a 9th ED till at least 2020 maby even 2022.

I might just be optimistic but the game is so much better than the last 2 editions (not that it's that hard to be better than the last 2 ED). I've been playing since 2nd ED with a small break at the beginning of 5th coming back for 6th and I love the current rules.

With the chapter approved updating the basic rules and FAQ's coming fairly regularly this is a very sustainable model and if you are worried about them not making a buck from books have no fear every codex will eventually be updated again (after all of them had their first turn) and we will see campaign books ect. as well.

I love the fact that they are bringing things like plastic sisters to life (I'd love to see re-imagined squats but even I'm not that optimistic), GW is listening to us or at least to trends so If you think there is an issue send them an email who knows maby your suggestion will be in the next chapter approved.

There are bad things about 8th I'm not saying it's perfect but at least we are not locked and stagnant until 9th ED.

All in all I am very excited to see this all happen.

Oh and not to mention the fact that specialist games are coming back as well.....that's just iceing on the cake.

Dandelion wrote:

 Formosa wrote:


Yep, if 7th was as unpopular as the dakka community claims the company would have folded the edition within months, it obviously sold well enough for the mountain of terrible supplements it got, where as 30ks biggest barrier was cost, 30k aptly proves that the main rules were fine, it was the codexs that totally ruined 7th 40k for a lot of people, in spite of that it sold and was popular the world over, just not with us.

Still the funniest thing for me was primarily 40k sites wants heresy in 8th, where as primarily 30k sites wanted it to stay with 7th, both have merits.

Ditching 7th within months would not have been feasible for GW. Considering it probably takes them 2-3 months (or more, who knows?) to make a codex based on index datasheets, it would seem 8th edition was in the works at least 1 year if not 2 years ahead of its release which would mean that 7th only lasted 1 year before GW couldn't take it anymore and decided to scrap the whole thing and start over. 1 year for GW is not a lot of time.

This is mostly in response to Formosa's comment. You've got a couple of things seriously wrong: The edition didn't sell models, 40k sold models. It's more likely that 7th edition was throttling model sales, which caused them to come out with cheap, poorly thought out supplements in an effort to drive profits in places where they were failing.

30k only proves that 7th edition can only kind of work if there're only 1.5ish armies total. Once you start dealing with stuff other than space marines the ruleset breaks down pretty fast. 30k still suffers heavily from most vehicles being basically useless and custodes came out to tournament bannable levels of op. 7th was fundamentally broken at its core in a way 8th isn't quite, They didn't leave themselves much room to make a decent cover system, but the rest of the game functions, if not fantastically, at least better than 7th.

If popularity is your measure of quality, then 8th is pretty much the be all end all of warhammer editions. GW can't even keep up with production anymore.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Ehh - more than likely we will get redone codexes in this eddition - space marines will probably get the first one. We will call it 8.5 though - not 9th edition.

I don't want SM to get the first codex again, do you think you can handle watching the codex power creep that comes afterwards, xeno?

In a more - serious - note, I really hope they ditch the incremental release of codexes and instead focus on a super agile approach; perhaps even leverage the modern age?
For example, buying models gives you their rules on the 40k list builder. And there they update as needed without having to grind out books.

Dandelion wrote:

 Formosa wrote:


Yep, if 7th was as unpopular as the dakka community claims the company would have folded the edition within months, it obviously sold well enough for the mountain of terrible supplements it got, where as 30ks biggest barrier was cost, 30k aptly proves that the main rules were fine, it was the codexs that totally ruined 7th 40k for a lot of people, in spite of that it sold and was popular the world over, just not with us.

Still the funniest thing for me was primarily 40k sites wants heresy in 8th, where as primarily 30k sites wanted it to stay with 7th, both have merits.

Ditching 7th within months would not have been feasible for GW. Considering it probably takes them 2-3 months (or more, who knows?) to make a codex based on index datasheets, it would seem 8th edition was in the works at least 1 year if not 2 years ahead of its release which would mean that 7th only lasted 1 year before GW couldn't take it anymore and decided to scrap the whole thing and start over. 1 year for GW is not a lot of time.

I think some people are forgetting that 7th DIDN'T sell well. Sure, they had the initial surge, but sales essentially stopped growing for GW during 7th. Their financials plateaued, which is one of the reason their recent reports look so good. I agree with Formosa though, it was primarily the supplements and codecies that ruined what had basically worked for over a decade.

The pace with which the codices are released (Harlies, SW, and Orks are basically missing) could be a hint that the 9th ed will arrive soon.

Dandelion wrote:
Just look at their stock price: it has tripled since 2017.
I personally never played 7th, but even outside of dakka I never got a good impression of the game, it was pretty clear not many people liked it at all. So, yes it was unpopular.

Yeah gee what a surprise. Good marketing leads to better sales.

Rule quality and balance wise both still suck. No change there. GW sells DESPITE rules.


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 kodos wrote:
I don't think that there will ever be something like a 9th edition

Yeah right. Changing editions is core policy of GW. Helps shuffling things around by making people buy stuff. Just see how every time GW releases new edition they see spike in sales. That's reason why they want to release new editions periodically.


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 EnTyme wrote:
A lot of people seem to think that GW makes their money off of codices. GW makes its money selling plastic. Even if you assume rules are the only thing that sells models and no one just buys the stuff they think looks cool, campaign books can do that just as easily as codices. I'm betting it'll be quite a while before we see 9th edition.

a) they make money from both. What? You think they sell codexes at loss?
b) new codex gets released, people buy new models to make collection fit new codex.

Who would have thought it. Rules affecting people's purchaces of models. Weren't all GW buyers just buying for collection rather than playing?

Better question than "is there going to be 9th ed or not" are "when" and "how big of a change".

I think 8th will be around for a long while now, the community as a whole seems to have a good reaction to it.

Community has had good reactions before as well. Doesn't stop GW from making their periodic grand shuffles.

I wonder if they've got an app ready to go for 40K, with all the datasheets included for free in a similar way to the AoS app, and the sped up codex release was to maximise profits on books first before the app goes live...

 Gareth40K wrote:
I wonder if they've got an app ready to go for 40K, with all the datasheets included for free in a similar way to the AoS app, and the sped up codex release was to maximise profits on books first before the app goes live...

They've already announced such an app.

IMO there will be an 8.5 after all the codexes are out where they re-release the BRB with all the errata and FAQ and chapter approved changes so it's all in one place. Then we'll probably see a few codexes every once in awhile, and 9th ed may never appear. That or they call 8.5 ed 9th ed.

If codexes and rulebooks don't make GW that much money, they are better off slowing down the rules overhauls and sticking with 8th.
A stable player-base is surely going to mean people will branch out into other armies, and expand the ones they have.
If the annual CA books change rules slightly, people will adapt their armies to fit the new way of playing. The recent CA rules said that flying models cannot score objectives (I think), so some armies had to adjust.