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ccs wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
We didn't have a single 40k codex in February,

Your not counting DA for some reason?

Because I thought it released in January, that was when the pre-order was

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:

ccs wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
We didn't have a single 40k codex in February,

Your not counting DA for some reason?

Because I thought it released in January, that was when the pre-order was

Didn't the Ork codex go into pre-order on the last week of Orktober?
By that logic and precedence DA came out in January, not February.

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:

ccs wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
We didn't have a single 40k codex in February,

Your not counting DA for some reason?

Because I thought it released in January, that was when the pre-order was

Pre-order =/= release date. You pre-order it so that it can be shipped in time to arrive in your mail box on release day.

 Ordana wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:

ccs wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
We didn't have a single 40k codex in February,

Your not counting DA for some reason?

Because I thought it released in January, that was when the pre-order was

Didn't the Ork codex go into pre-order on the last week of Orktober?
By that logic and precedence DA came out in January, not February.

That was gw logic then. They changed logic around october 2020.

admech looks more and more likely to be next one.

Voss wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Until we see previews for it, we won't have a solid idea either way. All speculation is equally valid - and invalid - at this point.

Considering the one specific piece of information specifically says it has both rules (for 4 factions) AND campaign rules... no, it isn't. It has 'codex supplement' rules, because that's what they explicitly said.

'All speculation is valid' is just a baffling concept. A simple thought exercise can easily disprove it. Valid and invalid is just vapid.

I could certainly see it containing Specialist Detachments, like Vigilus did, and Specialist detachments are specifically not allowed in Grand Tournament Matched Play, so gives players a way to play armies themed to the campaign, but not influence tournaments.

Today's preview of Piety and Pain confirms a March 20 preorder for the set, so we now know for sure it's dropping with the DE dex.

Hopefully the Charadon preview confirms its release date too. And I'm hoping they also throw in a line or two about the Mission Pack book; I suspect it will be dropped with the Admech Dex in April, which will put almost all the Charadon Cards in play (everything except the knight dex, though there likely will be some knights in the Admech book.

With today’s launch of an awesome new belakor model I guess chaos demons are next???

Not necessarily - he's being released as part of an AOS event (Broken Realms), with appropriate detailing to crop up in 40k.

I'll not be surprised to see a new datasheet should Chapter Approved roll around, though, like we have done with the Slaanesh stuff since that got its AOS wave.

It is getting to the point where Daemons needs an update just to roll all the releases into the book, but the same is true of the AdMech.

 jaredb wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Until we see previews for it, we won't have a solid idea either way. All speculation is equally valid - and invalid - at this point.

Considering the one specific piece of information specifically says it has both rules (for 4 factions) AND campaign rules... no, it isn't. It has 'codex supplement' rules, because that's what they explicitly said.

'All speculation is valid' is just a baffling concept. A simple thought exercise can easily disprove it. Valid and invalid is just vapid.

I could certainly see it containing Specialist Detachments, like Vigilus did, and Specialist detachments are specifically not allowed in Grand Tournament Matched Play, so gives players a way to play armies themed to the campaign, but not influence tournaments.

I'd be very surprised if they did that, specialist detachments seems to be a rather short lived idea dropped after Vigilus.

The actual releases are getting held up by supply issues, and GW has decided just to make people wait rather than giving us a roadmap, because their marketing people apparently firmly believe they sell more when they don't give roadmaps than when they do.

As much as I often dislike the choices those people make, they probably have a better bead on what will make them more money than I do, and I don't kid myself that they have any care beyond that question.

Honestly right now road maps are likely very hard for GW to put together when the situation nationally and globally is making big changes month to month and sometimes week to week. Heck last year even their per quarter annual roadmap for Necromunda failed to work.

I would love an overall 3 month or so detailed roadmap from GW; but right now I can appreciate that such a document might be very hard for them to put together and be meaningful. Heck 3 months ago they were aiming to now be heading back into 1 release a week.

I think it's more just a case of GW wanting to get back to the normal release schedule as fast as possible, but not knowing when they will be able to do it.

As others have said, they could give us a release order without dates... But that depends on how much they're adjusting the release schedule; if it's merely standard delays to the regular releases, the dateless doc could work.

But they may also have larger adaptations to the release schedule for the sake of grouping product releases- and if that's the case, without having a finite end time for the necessity of adaptations, it would be far more difficult to lay out a plan.

I figure they are having to mess with both. Some big releases might be so baked in that they have to happen at certain times or at least in a certain order to work. Others might be easier to move around and juggle. Pushing a big release till later; pulling smaller releases forward etc...

I suspect they are messing with both aspects as things happen. Heck it might be that they are all set with a major big release and then one major container ship gets delayed and suddenly they have to either delay a week or release something smaller that's already stocked locally and awaiting a slot etc....

PenitentJake wrote:
I think it's more just a case of GW wanting to get back to the normal release schedule as fast as possible, but not knowing when they will be able to do it.

As others have said, they could give us a release order without dates... But that depends on how much they're adjusting the release schedule; if it's merely standard delays to the regular releases, the dateless doc could work.

But they may also have larger adaptations to the release schedule for the sake of grouping product releases- and if that's the case, without having a finite end time for the necessity of adaptations, it would be far more difficult to lay out a plan.

If things change, they change. They could absolutely tell us tomorrow what their plan for the next year is right now, with either vague dates or a vague order. Might things change down the line? Sure, but that's always true.

The fact that they don't is because they don't want to for business reasons, not that they can't.

It might be that stating their intentions ala a roadmap (dateless or otherwise) has the potential to set the customer base up for disappointment, meaning that people will angrily demand (what was not promised) what they thought GW was going to crank out, even if GW includes a blurb that the document is subject to change due to the constant flux of current conditions.

I wonder with limited production or distribution capability, if this would be the time to sell the things they expect to sell less of? Xenos in particular. Unless they need the quick stimulus buck from space marine releases... Or unless they are trying to use an aggressive space marine release schedule to keep space marine players addicted to purchasing product...

macluvin wrote:
It might be that stating their intentions ala a roadmap (dateless or otherwise) has the potential to set the customer base up for disappointment, meaning that people will angrily demand (what was not promised) what they thought GW was going to crank out, even if GW includes a blurb that the document is subject to change due to the constant flux of current conditions.

Eh. That's happening anyway- its currently a mess of 'what people thought,' with previews just making things more confusing at the moment (there have been people positing that Broken Realms 3 is now going to happen before BR2:Teclis, simply because the BR3 previews are current and its been weeks since we heard anything about BR2)

They need to reassure people that things are coming out (Lizardman underworlds band), not release vague statements about release dates changing in unspecified ways, and get on track with a rough order, not just plunging merrily on as if the next release will just announce itself.

What they should do is a permanent pinned article on warhammer community where all game systems are outlined (and they could do art, models, silhouettes or whatever to make it look shiny), with the revealed releases clearly stated and when each system is getting its next information snippet. And when they do announce dates, they stick them there.
They don't need to go much further than they already have (Underworlds is currently sketched out until June), but they need more accessibility and clarity.

GW is just really bad at communication. They always have been. People talk about how much better they are these days...but they don't actually communicate any better, they just market better, and people mistake the two.

A more savvy company would have been preparing people for the big focus on marines ahead of time and telling people they appreciate their frustration if they're not a marine player, and assuring them that their time in the sun was coming too, just a little bit later. Instead we get total radio silence and no acknowledgment even after two years of an overwhelming marine focus that this is anything out of the ordinary.

Of course, maybe it isn't out of the ordinary. Maybe the reason they aren't telling people that Xenos' time is coming too...is because, well, it isn't. Maybe the only thing happening in 9th for Xenos is Necrons, and it already happened. We don't know, because they won't tell us.

yukishiro1 wrote:
GW is just really bad at communication. They always have been. People talk about how much better they are these days...but they don't actually communicate any better, they just market better, and people mistake the two.

A more savvy company would have been preparing people for the big focus on marines ahead of time and telling people they appreciate their frustration if they're not a marine player, and assuring them that their time in the sun was coming too, just a little bit later. Instead we get total radio silence and no acknowledgment even after two years of an overwhelming marine focus that this is anything out of the ordinary.

Of course, maybe it isn't out of the ordinary. Maybe the reason they aren't telling people that Xenos' time is coming too...is because, well, it isn't. Maybe the only thing happening in 9th for Xenos is Necrons, and it already happened. We don't know, because they won't tell us.

And on this topic, we've seen the new datasheets for both Admech and Sisters now. So somehow, even more Imperials. And not even the ones that are hurting for rules! And not even the ones that are hurting for model updates! This is what gets me. It could be a fallacious assumption based on Covid schedule changes, but it looks to me like GW planned for 9th to be MARINES/XENOS -> MARINES -> MARINES -> MEAN MARINES -> MARINES -> XENOS -> IMPERIAL (w/new models) -> IMPERIAL (w/new models). Why the hell were SoB and Admech ever at the front of the line for 9th??

yukishiro1 wrote:
GW is just really bad at communication. They always have been. People talk about how much better they are these days...but they don't actually communicate any better, they just market better, and people mistake the two.

A more savvy company would have been preparing people for the big focus on marines ahead of time and telling people they appreciate their frustration if they're not a marine player, and assuring them that their time in the sun was coming too, just a little bit later. Instead we get total radio silence and no acknowledgment even after two years of an overwhelming marine focus that this is anything out of the ordinary.

Of course, maybe it isn't out of the ordinary. Maybe the reason they aren't telling people that Xenos' time is coming too...is because, well, it isn't. Maybe the only thing happening in 9th for Xenos is Necrons, and it already happened. We don't know, because they won't tell us.

Its less bad communication and more deliberate strategy, GW wants you to buy a unit today that becomes garbage in tomorrows codex. They fear that if they tell you that a codex is coming next month you stop buying stuff to "wait and see".
Ofcourse on the flip side is the people who don't want to buy anything because they don't know what is going to happen.

yukishiro1 wrote:
GW is just really bad at communication. They always have been. People talk about how much better they are these days...but they don't actually communicate any better, they just market better, and people mistake the two.

A more savvy company would have been preparing people for the big focus on marines ahead of time and telling people they appreciate their frustration if they're not a marine player, and assuring them that their time in the sun was coming too, just a little bit later. Instead we get total radio silence and no acknowledgment even after two years of an overwhelming marine focus that this is anything out of the ordinary.

Of course, maybe it isn't out of the ordinary. Maybe the reason they aren't telling people that Xenos' time is coming too...is because, well, it isn't. Maybe the only thing happening in 9th for Xenos is Necrons, and it already happened. We don't know, because they won't tell us.

Really agree with this, and given their penchant for squatting all things non imperium, I'm very hesitant to buy xenos armies (I'm not interest in necrons, and didn't think the new models are worth the money at all over the old ones). Kind of annoys me that we now equate "xenos" which is like 8 armies or something, with what used to be considered 1 army. This whole shift from being a rich universe with loads of different playstyles and races, to its a game about space marines, and everything else is an npc, I really want to get back into 40k but this and the new rules are just big deterrents. Given how many kits forgeworld have gotten rid of for non marine factions too, it isn't a good sign for the future of anything not in power armour.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
Why the hell were SoB and Admech ever at the front of the line for 9th??

In the case of AdMech? To get all the models that have been released since their Codex came out - and we're talking 8-10 datasheets here, off the top of my head, ignoring anything new that drops - into the Codex so they don't have to rely on Engine War remaining in print.

There are pretty good odds that the AdMech book just has the Skitarii character as a new release - there may be other things, but that's the only confirmed one.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
Why the hell were SoB and Admech ever at the front of the line for 9th??

In the case of AdMech? To get all the models that have been released since their Codex came out - and we're talking 8-10 datasheets here, off the top of my head, ignoring anything new that drops - into the Codex so they don't have to rely on Engine War remaining in print.

There are pretty good odds that the AdMech book just has the Skitarii character as a new release - there may be other things, but that's the only confirmed one.

And as for Sisters, it's done to make up for the fact that there was only two months between geting our full Codex release and the announcement of the end of the edition. Don't get me wrong- Sisters are my primary army, and even so, I would gladly push back their release if it meant a better release for DE and a good full release for CWE.

But there is some lingering frustration over the whole Sisters curse thing. And giving us a nice second wave will go a long way. And man... Did we buy a lot of plastic once they gave us the option- honestly, I think that's part of it: we're almost as much of a license to print money as space marines.

If GW does it right (and they did with Sisters), the combined flavours of Eldar could also be a license to print money. But it takes investment to make that happen. Hopefully the lesson of Sisters gives them the guts to try other neglected factions. The Banshee situation is unfortunate: the legacy content in the BotP box pushed the price point too high; had they costed the box in the neighborhood of the new KT box for just JZ and the Banshees vs. Draz and the Incubi, they would have sold twice as many boxes. If the box of Banshees or the box of Incubi was ten or even five bucks cheaper, they'd sell twice as many of those too.

Heck, if the Banshee rules had been just a tad better, they might have sold more. And if they had done all three of these things correctly, these models would have flown off the shelves.

Unfortunately, GW flubbed not one, not two, but all three of these details. And I've always feared they might be obtuse enough to conclude that there was no interest in plastic Aspects, without realizing all of the things they did to hamper the success of the release.

 Ordana wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
GW is just really bad at communication. They always have been. People talk about how much better they are these days...but they don't actually communicate any better, they just market better, and people mistake the two.

A more savvy company would have been preparing people for the big focus on marines ahead of time and telling people they appreciate their frustration if they're not a marine player, and assuring them that their time in the sun was coming too, just a little bit later. Instead we get total radio silence and no acknowledgment even after two years of an overwhelming marine focus that this is anything out of the ordinary.

Of course, maybe it isn't out of the ordinary. Maybe the reason they aren't telling people that Xenos' time is coming too...is because, well, it isn't. Maybe the only thing happening in 9th for Xenos is Necrons, and it already happened. We don't know, because they won't tell us.

Its less bad communication and more deliberate strategy, GW wants you to buy a unit today that becomes garbage in tomorrows codex. They fear that if they tell you that a codex is coming next month you stop buying stuff to "wait and see".
Ofcourse on the flip side is the people who don't want to buy anything because they don't know what is going to happen.

I'm definitely in the latter category. I'm interested enough in Cursed City that I'm buying nothing until that comes around. And anything fantasy related is on hold until I see ALL of whats coming for the undead, just in case they pull a bait and switch like Lumenith (first couple units look like revised high elves, then everything goes to Absurdville).

I was thinking about picking up some daemon stuff for 40k, but paused for the 'if you have it in your cart giveaway' (despite the odds) and just... didn't. And now I don't want to until I see if anything coming with Be'lakor and any conversion possibilities he opens up. Plus, I'm waiting to see what's after Dark Eldar. I think its going to be Ad Mech, Knights, Sisters and Orks (based on previewed model snippets and Warzone Charadon Book 1), but since I don't know for certain... oh well.

Better to not spend. And that's not the decision their marketing should be guiding me to.

PenitentJake wrote:
I think it's more just a case of GW wanting to get back to the normal release schedule as fast as possible, but not knowing when they will be able to do it..

Well they just said normal operation resumes on 20th

I do wonder how often people actually use these new rules in games they actually play.

PenitentJake wrote:

If GW does it right (and they did with Sisters), the combined flavours of Eldar could also be a license to print money. But it takes investment to make that happen. Hopefully the lesson of Sisters gives them the guts to try other neglected factions. The Banshee situation is unfortunate: the legacy content in the BotP box pushed the price point too high; had they costed the box in the neighborhood of the new KT box for just JZ and the Banshees vs. Draz and the Incubi, they would have sold twice as many boxes. If the box of Banshees or the box of Incubi was ten or even five bucks cheaper, they'd sell twice as many of those too..

Lol. Ah the armchair marketing generals in forums making silly claims with zero evidence

BTW GW has tried cheaper releases. Obviously it hasn't resulted in suitable sale increase. Not to mention GW is making record profit while literally unable to produce enough to keep up with demand...Hell it's doubtful they could sell even 5% more boxes seeing they can't even produce enough as is...

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
GW is just really bad at communication. They always have been. People talk about how much better they are these days...but they don't actually communicate any better, they just market better, and people mistake the two.

A more savvy company would have been preparing people for the big focus on marines ahead of time and telling people they appreciate their frustration if they're not a marine player, and assuring them that their time in the sun was coming too, just a little bit later. Instead we get total radio silence and no acknowledgment even after two years of an overwhelming marine focus that this is anything out of the ordinary.

Of course, maybe it isn't out of the ordinary. Maybe the reason they aren't telling people that Xenos' time is coming too...is because, well, it isn't. Maybe the only thing happening in 9th for Xenos is Necrons, and it already happened. We don't know, because they won't tell us.

And on this topic, we've seen the new datasheets for both Admech and Sisters now. So somehow, even more Imperials. And not even the ones that are hurting for rules! And not even the ones that are hurting for model updates! This is what gets me. It could be a fallacious assumption based on Covid schedule changes, but it looks to me like GW planned for 9th to be MARINES/XENOS -> MARINES -> MARINES -> MEAN MARINES -> MARINES -> XENOS -> IMPERIAL (w/new models) -> IMPERIAL (w/new models). Why the hell were SoB and Admech ever at the front of the line for 9th??

To be fair I think Admech and Sisters players are lowkey dreading their 9th rules updates.

There are so many exploitable and abusive rules in those books that would just disappear overnight with 9th Ed design concepts applied. Admech shooting especially would see a gigantic hit.

Sisters and Admech are two of the three strongest armies right now on Competitive TTS play. I don't think GW cares about whether an army is weak or not when it's working out orders of release, it likely has more to do with the number of units that are on release for an army that are not in a codex. That's just a guess, though it is somewhat substantiated by the godawful CSM 8.2 codex rerelease.

 grouchoben wrote:
Sisters and Admech are two of the three strongest armies right now on Competitive TTS play. I don't think GW cares about whether an army is weak or not when it's working out orders of release, it likely has more to do with the number of units that are on release for an army that are not in a codex. That's just a guess, though it is somewhat substantiated by the godawful CSM 8.2 codex rerelease.

1000 times this, they are two top tier armys

while playing with CWE its like.... well lets say its not fun

And dont even get me started with ynnari lol

yukishiro1 wrote:
GW is just really bad at communication. They always have been. People talk about how much better they are these days...but they don't actually communicate any better, they just market better, and people mistake the two.

A more savvy company would have been preparing people for the big focus on marines ahead of time and telling people they appreciate their frustration if they're not a marine player, and assuring them that their time in the sun was coming too, just a little bit later. Instead we get total radio silence and no acknowledgment even after two years of an overwhelming marine focus that this is anything out of the ordinary.

Of course, maybe it isn't out of the ordinary. Maybe the reason they aren't telling people that Xenos' time is coming too...is because, well, it isn't. Maybe the only thing happening in 9th for Xenos is Necrons, and it already happened. We don't know, because they won't tell us.

And if you think regular GW is bad at communication, try being a Horus Heresy player!

We still have minis that got previewed early last year that haven't been released yet(Word Bearers praetors).
After Crusade was released, any and all content for 30k basically dried up, with the exception of a few blurb articles on Warhammer Community in the vein of "You can preorder this mini now".
One of the few remaining designers for the game announced on his Facebook that he was leaving FW and moving on to a new job at a different company. In that post, he mentioned that that effectively, the Horus Heresy design team was down to one person.
There's no telling whether or not 30k will even see anything new this year. No word on the next black book, or if they'll continue the books at all.
Horus Heresy is conspicuously missing from the "Explore Our Games" tab on the Warhammer Community site.
There's no roadmap for the game at all, even though multiple other specialist games have received them.

Needless to say, it's incredibly frustrating to be in that situation right now. Any communication whatsoever from FW about the Heresy would be amazing, even if it were something like "Hey, the game is on pause right now while we work on getting more designers". I'm not worried about my ork army - 40K isn't going anywhere - but I'd be annoyed if they decided to squat 30k altogether.