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It makes the most sense to split them as:

1) Marines - including the contents of 5+ of the current 7th ed books
2) The rest of the Imperium - again the contents some 5+ 7th ed books + supplements
3) Chaos - will include the contents of 3 main codices and several supplements
4) Aeldari - will include the contents of 3 full 7th ed codices and 3 supplements (Iyanden, Covens, Gathering Storm) POSSIBLY Tau
5) Xenos - Necrons, Ork, and the metric crap ton of all the Nid material (plus Stealer cults) could more than fill 1 book alone, plus Tau if they aren't rolled into the Eldar book.

My prediction has less to do with what factions work together (although that is a big factor for 1-4 above) and way more to do with getting all the factions spread out EVENLY in a way that makes sense.
Eldar currently have almost as many books/supplements as Space Marines, hence they are very likely to get their own book to fit all the units into.
But given the rumour mill image, I am now leaning toward Aeldari + Tau being a book. That would split the Xenos a bit more evenly into Xenos: Order & Xenos: Destruction

I agree with this assessment.

Going for a consistent price point on all 5 books is good move. I also think, like others have mentioned, the books will be titled from the Imperiums Point of View rather than a customer POV. This is why I think Tau could be in either Xenos book. From a elves point of view it will be great to have all elves in one book though a good chance it will include Tau.

Sorry my last couple comments were a little heated. It's been a rough week. So anyway, why are people convinced SM won't be in the Imperium book and Eldar not in the Xenos? When AoS came out, Stormcast and Khorne Bloodbound had their own battletomes, but their rules were also in the Order and Chaos GA books respectively. Why wouldn't they do the same thing with 40k?

Im responding a little late to this but GK and LotD are all in C:IA which makes me think they will be included with Imperial Agents and not the normal space marines

 EnTyme wrote:
Sorry my last couple comments were a little heated. It's been a rough week. So anyway, why are people convinced SM won't be in the Imperium book and Eldar not in the Xenos? When AoS came out, Stormcast and Khorne Bloodbound had their own battletomes, but their rules were also in the Order and Chaos GA books respectively. Why wouldn't they do the same thing with 40k?

No worries. I personally think SM will be separate because of just how popular SM actually are, plus their number of books currently. Cramming SM, Blood & Dark Angels and Wolfs, with possible Deathwatch and/or Grey knights into 1 book is a pretty big task, especially since GW has confirmed that each of the faction books will be affordable (as in less than the cost of any 1 of those codices above).
There are way more SM products and players than AoS Stormcasts & Khorne Bloodbound combined.

Rolling them into the Imperium book just isn't a smart move for practicality sake; that book would be HUGE and would have to cost more for GW to profit. Splitting the Imperium (which has by far the most 40K products GW makes and probably more products than all of AoS) into 2 books allows them to sell more efficiently. I do not think the AoS examples you've used have nearly the following that SM and Imperials currently do.
I also don't think 40K is doing "Grand alliances" because the lines in 40k are not as clear as AoS was when it started.

-

 Galef wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
Sorry my last couple comments were a little heated. It's been a rough week. So anyway, why are people convinced SM won't be in the Imperium book and Eldar not in the Xenos? When AoS came out, Stormcast and Khorne Bloodbound had their own battletomes, but their rules were also in the Order and Chaos GA books respectively. Why wouldn't they do the same thing with 40k?

No worries. I personally think SM will be separate because of just how popular SM actually are, plus their number of books currently. Cramming SM, Blood & Dark Angels and Wolfs, with possible Deathwatch and/or Grey knights into 1 book is a pretty big task, especially since GW has confirmed that each of the faction books will be affordable (as in less than the cost of any 1 of those codices above).
There are way more SM products and players than AoS Stormcasts & Khorne Bloodbound combined.

Rolling them into the Imperium book just isn't a smart move for practicality sake; that book would be HUGE and would have to cost more for GW to profit. Splitting the Imperium (which has by far the most 40K products GW makes and probably more products than all of AoS) into 2 books allows them to sell more efficiently. I do not think the AoS examples you've used have nearly the following that SM and Imperials currently do.
I also don't think 40K is doing "Grand alliances" because the lines in 40k are not as clear as AoS was when it started.

-

Okay. I'm still not entirely convinced, though. I really think these first five books are going to be in the same format as the Grand Alliance books. It'll probably just be data sheets and brief faction descriptions. I doubt we'll even get faction-specific detachments and rules. Those will be in the codices (and I'm 99.9999999% positive on of those 5 books will be a Space Marines codex). The conglomeration books, for lack of a better term, aren't really meant to be the primary rulebook you use when playing that army. Again, that's what the codices are for. The conglomeration books are to get an army by until a proper codex is released, as well as to be used as a resource for people who don't actually play that army, but need to know the rule or want might be considering starting that army, like a Tau player who might be looking to start Imperium or is just needing to know what he's up against.

Looking at the webstore between all Astartes chapters, we're probably looking at around 120 actual unique units. That'd only comes out to about 130 pages by the time you add in the armory and a quick faction description for each chapter. Looking at the rest of the Imperium forces, you're probably looking at 150 or so pages. That's be about the same size as the GA: Order book, and is probably closer to the size of book GW is wanting to release for the intro books. Just my personal opinion.

LMFAO, if they cut out all the fluff then they can fit all imperials in one book, all traitors in one book, all eldar in 1 book, all xenos in 1 book etc...

Each codex has at most 25 pages of actual game rules and the rest is just pictures and fluffy text.

"Evil Xenos" and "Good Xenos" worst guess of the thread by far.

The rules will be a 12-page pamphlet, so I assume either 5 faction books ala OP, or 4 if Marines and Imperium are combined into one 10000 page tome of good lord that's a lot of entries.

With the books officially announced, now seems like I good time to bump this back to the top. Looks like Galef and I were each partially right. Various flavors of Space Marines are in a separate book, but it's still called Imperium (Part 1), while the rest of the Imperium is in part 2. My question, though, is who the hell had the bright idea to put Necrons and Eldar together (yes, I know they're not a "Grand Alliance")? Can't say I saw anyone predict that one.

 EnTyme wrote:
My question, though, is who the hell had the bright idea to put Necrons and Eldar together (yes, I know they're not a "Grand Alliance")? Can't say I saw anyone predict that one.

Why not put them there? And secondly, The War in Heaven.

EnTyme wrote:With the books officially announced, now seems like I good time to bump this back to the top. Looks like Galef and I were each partially right. Various flavors of Space Marines are in a separate book, but it's still called Imperium (Part 1), while the rest of the Imperium is in part 2. My question, though, is who the hell had the bright idea to put Necrons and Eldar together (yes, I know they're not a "Grand Alliance")? Can't say I saw anyone predict that one.

VictorVonTzeentch wrote:The War in Heaven.

Basically, it is broken into Astartes, Imperium (non-Astartes), Chaos, Large-Empire building-Xenos, and Small-Empire & Destructive Xenos. Seems fine to me. It may have had more to do with trying to keep the page count similar between the books than anything.

I'm going to have to get all 5 books for my armies though. No biggie, especially if they keep the pricing convention as they have for Age of Sigmar.

Necrons being part of the Aeldari book is rather puzzling. T'au or even Orks would have made more sense. Orks being a cousin race of the Eldar afterall.

My guess it that it had a lot to do with available space. GW probably put all the Aeldari together and then needed X more pages to fill. Necrons came the closest.

I'm very excited that these books look affordable. It looks like you can get all 5 for about the price of two 7E codices.

-

So the Xeno groupings are...

Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necrons

Orks, Tau, Tyranids


You know what system they used to group these together?

ALPHABETICAL

 Talamare wrote:
So the Xeno groupings are...

Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necrons

Orks, Tau, Tyranids


You know what system they used to group these together?

ALPHABETICAL

Yeah I noticed that too lol. I was mostly right in guessing the books. I just figured the xenos would be one big book. Otherwise spot on. I did not see alphabetical order happening though.

I am assuming the Xenos split is to make the books roughly the same size.

Maybe

 Gamgee wrote:

 Talamare wrote:
So the Xeno groupings are...

Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necrons

Orks, Tau, Tyranids


You know what system they used to group these together?

ALPHABETICAL

Yeah I noticed that too lol. I was mostly right in guessing the books. I just figured the xenos would be one big book. Otherwise spot on. I did not see alphabetical order happening though.

Huh.

I guess the War in Heaven thing is just a conveniant coincidence.


Edit; Wait though, system is flawed. Craftworlds, Drukhari, Harlequins, Necrons makes sense for Alphabetical, but you forget Ynnari. Unless they just slipped it in for sake of it, because All Eldar together makes as much sense as All Marines together


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:
I am assuming the Xenos split is to make the books roughly the same size.

Maybe

That would also be a flawed argument as there are 5 Xenos factions in one book and only 4 in the other, which are a lot smaller factions as well. Tyranids have lots of units but Orks, Genestealers and Tau don't.

 Deadshot wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:

 Talamare wrote:
So the Xeno groupings are...

Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necrons

Orks, Tau, Tyranids


You know what system they used to group these together?

ALPHABETICAL

Yeah I noticed that too lol. I was mostly right in guessing the books. I just figured the xenos would be one big book. Otherwise spot on. I did not see alphabetical order happening though.

Huh.

I guess the War in Heaven thing is just a conveniant coincidence.


Edit; Wait though, system is flawed. Craftworlds, Drukhari, Harlequins, Necrons makes sense for Alphabetical, but you forget Ynnari. Unless they just slipped it in for sake of it, because All Eldar together makes as much sense as All Marines together


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:
I am assuming the Xenos split is to make the books roughly the same size.

Maybe

That would also be a flawed argument as there are 5 Xenos factions in one book and only 4 in the other, which are a lot smaller factions as well. Tyranids have lots of units but Orks, Genestealers and Tau don't.

Yes, same reason why Genestealers are 2nd book, they are technically just Tyranids in Human Armor

but Orks, Genestealers and Tau don't

Huh? Orks have over 40 individual units at a cursory glance in battlescribe. Tau circa 30+
Thats hardly small.
Throw in Nids and GSC and thats a meaty enough book unit-wise.

 Ratius wrote:

but Orks, Genestealers and Tau don't

Huh? Orks have over 40 individual units at a cursory glance in battlescribe. Tau circa 30+
Thats hardly small.
Throw in Nids and GSC and thats a meaty enough book unit-wise.

Tau still have one of the smallest rosters for a main 40k race. I think they might have passed DE or Necrons by now though. Prior to their Stormsurge update they had the smallest amount of units available or second smallest (forget). Not a large amount by any other factions choices.

 Gamgee wrote:

 Ratius wrote:

but Orks, Genestealers and Tau don't

Huh? Orks have over 40 individual units at a cursory glance in battlescribe. Tau circa 30+
Thats hardly small.
Throw in Nids and GSC and thats a meaty enough book unit-wise.

Tau still have one of the smallest rosters for a main 40k race. I think they might have passed DE or Necrons by now though. Prior to their Stormsurge update they had the smallest amount of units available or second smallest (forget). Not a large amount by any other factions choices.

Keep in mind that we may lose some units that share kits, particularly "veteran" versions of units . Crisis Suits can make 2 different units, as can Dark Eldar Wyches and Kabalite Warriors (right?). Are Ymgarl Genestealers still a thing for 7th Edition?

I hope we don't lose any options, but it is a possibility to keep in mind.

 Talamare wrote:
So the Xeno groupings are...

Eldar, Dark Eldar, Necrons

Orks, Tau, Tyranids


You know what system they used to group these together?

ALPHABETICAL

Well, you can just get right the hell out of here with that kind of logic!