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ccs wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

Last thing you need on a worldwide release is a typo on page 32 because you couldn't be bothered and just did a lazy copy paste job.

Somebody'd better let GW know that ASAP.....

That's my main worry about doing a Codex dump, the number of typos in them when they are only concentrating on a handful at a time is bad enough, they would be nigh on unreadable if the Codex team was working on them all simultaneously.

"The Blod Angles faught harde aganst the Chaoss horrds, chanswards and belters unlessahing deth upn th herticks."

 Horla wrote:

ccs wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

Last thing you need on a worldwide release is a typo on page 32 because you couldn't be bothered and just did a lazy copy paste job.

Somebody'd better let GW know that ASAP.....

That's my main worry about doing a Codex dump, the number of typos in them when they are only concentrating on a handful at a time is bad enough, they would be nigh on unreadable if the Codex team was working on them all simultaneously.

"The Blod Angles faught harde aganst the Chaoss horrds, chanswards and belters unlessahing deth upn th herticks."

I'm all for equipping my marines with belters though.

Grey40k wrote:
The company had high margins and record profit, they could afford to triple or quadruple the rules team and still be very viable.

And they did advertise for games developers last year (and are currently after Staff Writers & DTP Operators).

Is the claim now that they cannot find the necessary people to do the job? And thus we cannot overwork a few poor rule writers?

I find that extrapolating from small and familiar examples to large corporations and professional environments is hardly informative.

GW could have hired more rule writers at any time, had they decided they wanted to work on balancing all (or most) factions early in an edition. They have the resources to do so. Claiming that there are many factions and rule interactions and thus this is extremely complex and requires months, if not years, is simply outrageous. Yes, it isn't trivial. No, it is not, by any means, comparable to the difficulties involved in many other contexts and operations. I am referring to the scientific-engineering-technical tasks by companies and other organizations, and the far more complex logistic issues handled routinely by such groups.

Simply put, releasing factions separately, over the course of years, is a deliverate choice made by the company and it is most likely very directly informed by marketing / sales concerns. It certainly isn't a feasibility problem, as some around here would have us believe. The feasibility of printing a couple dozen books for a game, let that sink, is what is being questioned.

Deadnight wrote:All of which requires, formatting, editing,layout and massive back and forth regarding which artwork, which photos,or new ones, where they will be placed etc etc. Then there's the text updates. You don't just copy/paste these things.

-- I think part of the problem is you're assuming that because your company is bad at it, everyone is bad at it. I've worked for companies like that before, that struggled to execute even very simple things without an enormous amount of messing about and tripping over themselves. Equally I've worked for companies that execute things that on paper seem quite complicated, but they made them look easy. E.g. the company I used to work for, the boss wanted to produce a new promotional leaflet for the companies services. Granted not a huge task. He hired another small company whose owner he knew. He wrote all of his blurb, sent it off, they formatted it all and laid it out for him. The format process took maybe a week.

The point being that a lot of the issues you're referring to are caused by culture, such as having too many cooks involved in making the broth. One of the reasons GW keeps its staff down is precisely because it allows them to be a bit more agile with this kind of thing, and they have their own in house team to do things like book formatting. Part of that will be having a company "style", e.g. they'll have their own preferred method for laying out their materials that doesn't change a huge amount between editions. If you look at most of the rulebooks throughout the ages, they actually have a pretty similar layout in terms of the order for example in which different topics are addressed. You're taking the problem and you're a) trying to make it as difficult as hypothetically possible and b) you're imposing upon it your own companies problems with work flow.

Deadnight wrote:I'm all for equipping my marines with belters though.

-- On this I think we can all agree.

Grey40k wrote:GW could have hired more rule writers at any time, had they decided they wanted to work on balancing all (or most) factions early in an edition. They have the resources to do so. Claiming that there are many factions and rule interactions and thus this is extremely complex and requires months, if not years, is simply outrageous.

-- The problem is not so much writing rules, it's testing. Other game designers of other systems have emphasised this point. There are only so many hours in the day for testing different combinations and armies against one another, which is why most game designers don't try and shoehorn an RPG style rule set and attribute profile into what is essentially a company scale (some would even argue battalion scale) game. Part of the issue is tournament organisers; they could ban named characters and allies in a heartbeat and solve quite a lot of the common complaints around balance, while still allowing players to bring Gulliman for their game against their friends.

And - to be frank - most GW rulesets are considered subpar when compared to the wider world of wargaming. There's a reason very few serious historical gamers try and use an adaptation of GW rules for their own systems/time frames.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" - Hanlon's razor.

Grey40k wrote:
they could afford to triple or quadruple the rules team and still be very viable.

That's honestly and truly a terrible idea for any business, because now you need to occupy three to four times the salary the rest of the year(s).

And despite the memes GW does playtest and it seems they're at least somewhat more effective at it of late.

Testing is a matter of resources as well.

Let's face it, GW could but does not want to balance the game better. Releasing updates closer in time so that no army is left in the dust for years is part of it, but there is more.

bouncingboredom wrote:

Deadnight wrote:All of which requires, formatting, editing,layout and massive back and forth regarding which artwork, which photos,or new ones, where they will be placed etc etc. Then there's the text updates. You don't just copy/paste these things.

-- I think part of the problem is you're assuming that because your company is bad at it, everyone is bad at it. I've worked for companies like that before, that struggled to execute even very simple things without an enormous amount of messing about and tripping over themselves. Equally I've worked for companies that execute things that on paper seem quite complicated, but they made them look easy. E.g. the company I used to work for, the boss wanted to produce a new promotional leaflet for the companies services. Granted not a huge task. He hired another small company whose owner he knew. He wrote all of his blurb, sent it off, they formatted it all and laid it out for him. The format process took maybe a week.

How is that in any way comparable to writing, testing, laying out and typesetting a Codex? Everything you're saying in this thread is coming off as seriously naïve about the process you're criticising, both in terms of production at GW's end and at the retail end of the chain. Even in the first batch of 9th edition Codexes we've seen GW experimenting with new layouts and design ideas so it's not even the case that they have a fixed template they can just drop their content into. The production pipeline for new models and artwork also needs t be taken into account.

You could wait until all that's ready for every army, but then you're sitting on a huge amount of work that the company has paid for but isn't generating any income from. We know a lot of GW's profits come from their new releases. If they didn't have that stream of new releases bringing in constant good revenue from month to month they'd quickly find themselves having to dip into their cash reserves while they wait for the work to be completed so they can release everything all at once. Then you need to persuade all the FLGS to drop a huge amount of cash on this massive release in the hope they recoup it quickly, or extend your credit line to those FLGS to a ridiculous degree, thereby increasing the risk to GW. You also reduce the likelihood of players spending the same amount on your products if everything releases at once. I own multiple armies but I wouldn't be keen to shell out for 4-5 new books in the space of a month, along with a bunch of new models as well. The most likely outcome is I'd concentrate on 1 or 2 and GW loses money again. I don't think I'm alone in that.

If they release codexes with new models or units in them, they have to release the models at the same time, or lose out to 3rd-parties who beat them to it.
GW learned the hard way about that a few years ago, and it is a huge part of why codexes and suppliments are released at the same time as models.

Either they release models with the rules in the box, before the entry hits the codex, or the book comes out and there is no model for it.
Option 1 has been tried, and works to an extent.
Option 2 fails every time. People complain about the lack of models to buy, and kitbashes or proxies instead.

But, as with the AoS Elves released this week, their updated codex turns up less than a year after the first book was released. People who bought that are short £25, since last years book is now obsolete.

GW's best option is to keep the non-Marine codexes coming out. I gave up on Marines entirely when 2 codexes were released in the same edition.

bouncingboredom wrote:

-- I think part of the problem is you're assuming that because your company is bad at it, everyone is bad at it. I've worked for companies like that before, that struggled to execute even very simple things without an enormous amount of messing about and tripping over themselves.

Be very careful.who you judge as 'bad' before you know the full picture. mine (pharma) is one of the most heavily regulated industries out there and everything is checked and triple checked. There's whole departments in places dedicated to checking the spelling of each word in patient information leaflets for example. One typo, one coma out of place and the whole thing is in trouble.

My point stands. For any product you see, there are hundreds if not thousands of man hours across multiple departments that have gone into it, either directly or indirectly. Trying to multiply this effort thirty times for a simultaneous mega codex release is an astronomical investment of time and productivity, for very little gain.

Table wrote:
The current system on phased releases does more harm than good. Not only is it far harder to combat power creep with a phased release but it leaves some armies at the end of the current edition, making so they have to play most of the edition with a huge handicap. It seems to me that to write and release all/most factions at edition release seems to be the best bet. Not to mention that some factions that need a update most are put on the back burner for more popular factions (thousand sons).

Im guessing it is about money. Not sure why else they would adopt a phased release of codex. Your opinions?

Because they are greedy donkey-caves thats why.

Most of the codexes are already written at this time. its wrong for people to assume they write one codex, then release it, then on to the next. They dont. Most are already written. They just want more money, they are greedy.

Beardedragon wrote:

Table wrote:
The current system on phased releases does more harm than good. Not only is it far harder to combat power creep with a phased release but it leaves some armies at the end of the current edition, making so they have to play most of the edition with a huge handicap. It seems to me that to write and release all/most factions at edition release seems to be the best bet. Not to mention that some factions that need a update most are put on the back burner for more popular factions (thousand sons).

Im guessing it is about money. Not sure why else they would adopt a phased release of codex. Your opinions?

Because they are greedy donkey-caves thats why.

Most of the codexes are already written at this time. its wrong for people to assume they write one codex, then release it, then on to the next. They dont. Most are already written. They just want more money, they are greedy.

Not sure why you believe they're 'already written.'

It isn't a simple matter of 'write book, release book.' There are a lot of steps to the production of any book, writing is only part of it (layout, art, photographs, revision, editing, more revision, etc, getting the final document ready for publication, then printing, then shipping). Yes, multiple books will be in process at the same time, but they'll be a different stages of that process, and involve different people at those various stages. They aren't sitting on a hard drive of finished works, and nefariously scheming ways of... not... publishing them, for 'greedy money' reasons.

Deadnight wrote:
One typo, one coma out of place and the whole thing is in trouble.

...I see what you mean.

Have there been any real rumors about when the rest of CSM getting their codex? Being half as good as loyalists with a 1 point discount is beginning to be a bit frustrating. It was already an uphill battle back when the "2.0" books came out (around when I took a break), but that gap has only widened. It's disheartening knowing i have to be twice as good, twice as lucky with units that are half what my opponents have.

Beardedragon wrote:

Most of the codexes are already written at this time. its wrong for people to assume they write one codex, then release it, then on to the next. They dont. Most are already written. They just want more money, they are greedy.

Surely you have evidence for this claim.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Beardedragon wrote:

Most of the codexes are already written at this time. its wrong for people to assume they write one codex, then release it, then on to the next. They dont. Most are already written. They just want more money, they are greedy.

Surely you have evidence for this claim.

Well - the 9th edd update for points (back near the eddition start) has the same obvious errors for reaver jet bikes points - revers are not a 10 point model. Id say the only way such an obvious error is made is the documents were written at the same time or one copied the other. We are talking about what? A 9 month difference in print? I think it's clear at least the draft for the DE codex was already written up at the point all those armies updates were made.

Voss wrote:

Beardedragon wrote:

Table wrote:
The current system on phased releases does more harm than good. Not only is it far harder to combat power creep with a phased release but it leaves some armies at the end of the current edition, making so they have to play most of the edition with a huge handicap. It seems to me that to write and release all/most factions at edition release seems to be the best bet. Not to mention that some factions that need a update most are put on the back burner for more popular factions (thousand sons).

Im guessing it is about money. Not sure why else they would adopt a phased release of codex. Your opinions?

Because they are greedy donkey-caves thats why.

Most of the codexes are already written at this time. its wrong for people to assume they write one codex, then release it, then on to the next. They dont. Most are already written. They just want more money, they are greedy.

Not sure why you believe they're 'already written.'

It isn't a simple matter of 'write book, release book.' There are a lot of steps to the production of any book, writing is only part of it (layout, art, photographs, revision, editing, more revision, etc, getting the final document ready for publication, then printing, then shipping). Yes, multiple books will be in process at the same time, but they'll be a different stages of that process, and involve different people at those various stages. They aren't sitting on a hard drive of finished works, and nefariously scheming ways of... not... publishing them, for 'greedy money' reasons.

Mate.. to make the codexes they do not write one book at a time. They write several to put them somewhat in line with each other. Its not like star wars episode 7 8 and 9 where they just made one movie after the other with no visible path of where they were going.

They write several at a time. By the time the DG codex was done, so was the drukhari one. There have been people working for GW who has stated as much, that they actually do write several books at once, not one book at a time.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Grey40k wrote:
they could afford to triple or quadruple the rules team and still be very viable.

That's honestly and truly a terrible idea for any business, because now you need to occupy three to four times the salary the rest of the year(s).

And despite the memes GW does playtest and it seems they're at least somewhat more effective at it of late.

Eh, hard disagree (to the first part at least). Yes, okay, say GW added 1M GBP worth of headcount for these gigs next year. From what we've heard, GW doesn't actually pay very well, and salaries in the UK are generally not super high. So say all in, you're talking 50k per person. Or hell, maybe you're GW and you realize you need to add quality, not quantity, and you add 100k per person. That's 1M Pounds per year. Yeah, that's a not insignificant sum. But if that took us from GW's current rules level to top of the market where it belongs, I think it would be worth it. Even if GW used that as an excuse to raise prices somewhat, I could bear an increase for that purpose. I don't get why this is a terrible idea; you think Apple skimps on engineers/developers/testers/marketers? If GW wants to be the Apple of tabletop, they need to equal that on the rules side.

And honestly, GW wouldn't even need to raise prices. The margins they make are already *filthy*. They could easily justify another million in labor for the long-term health of the game.

StarHunter25 wrote:
Have there been any real rumors about when the rest of CSM getting their codex? Being half as good as loyalists with a 1 point discount is beginning to be a bit frustrating. It was already an uphill battle back when the "2.0" books came out (around when I took a break), but that gap has only widened. It's disheartening knowing i have to be twice as good, twice as lucky with units that are half what my opponents have.

4 point discount ( 6 against Intercessors ). Sisters are 11. 3 points more than a sister isn't a huge gap for +1WS, +1A ( on the charge ), +1T. The problem is CSM just have no good traits and other rules ( other than some PA ) to help enough to make them as viable. If you look around so much of what hits will kill you Primaris or otherwise. W1 models are overly stigmatized even if the concerns are valid.

Deamon engines love eating MM shots. Backed up with a core of CSM you could probably have a mediocre list that doesn't fold.

No word on the book. Perhaps in the next batch.

Might just be that you and I have decent local metas, but on my experience when my maulerfiends or venomcrawlers get shot by multimeltas or heavy meltarifles, they die. Unfortunately I play WE, so no psykers for me to buff my things. That my zerks get bodied by assault intercessors 8 times out of 10 is annoying to say the least. I'm going to have to agree with OP, at least having a proper "9e index" would have been an acceptable stopgap instead of 2/3 of the factions being DoA because they lacked either a new codex or the right 8e rules. Then this be the status quo for 18 months because GW decided to axe digital books.

StarHunter25 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

StarHunter25 wrote:
Have there been any real rumors about when the rest of CSM getting their codex? Being half as good as loyalists with a 1 point discount is beginning to be a bit frustrating. It was already an uphill battle back when the "2.0" books came out (around when I took a break), but that gap has only widened. It's disheartening knowing i have to be twice as good, twice as lucky with units that are half what my opponents have.

4 point discount ( 6 against Intercessors ). Sisters are 11. 3 points more than a sister isn't a huge gap for +1WS, +1A ( on the charge ), +1T. The problem is CSM just have no good traits and other rules ( other than some PA ) to help enough to make them as viable. If you look around so much of what hits will kill you Primaris or otherwise. W1 models are overly stigmatized even if the concerns are valid.

Deamon engines love eating MM shots. Backed up with a core of CSM you could probably have a mediocre list that doesn't fold.

No word on the book. Perhaps in the next batch.

Might just be that you and I have decent local metas, but on my experience when my maulerfiends or venomcrawlers get shot by multimeltas or heavy meltarifles, they die. Unfortunately I play WE, so no psykers for me to buff my things. That my zerks get bodied by assault intercessors 8 times out of 10 is annoying to say the least. I'm going to have to agree with OP, at least having a proper "9e index" would have been an acceptable stopgap instead of 2/3 of the factions being DoA because they lacked either a new codex or the right 8e rules. Then this be the status quo for 18 months because GW decided to axe digital books.

Yea, as always YMMV. 3 Eradicators with MM ( equivalent of 4 attack bikes ) should be incapable on average of killing a daemon engine unless they're w/i 12", but with terrain and decent speed you should get to choose the time and place more often. Heavy melta rifles are a different story, but few people seem to take those due to their limitations.

You should go ham apoplectic frenzy and chainswords on Zerkers ( chainaxe doesn't offer as much when they're S5 and the CS is AP1 now ).

+D3 attacks and Gorefather is great for going through terminators. The 5+++ glaive and half damage in melee is nice, too. Get a priest in there for +1 to wound.

This is very much the edition for World Eaters. With CS they're 5A on the charge. ((26 * .167 * .666) + (26 * .666)) * .666 * .5 = 6.7 to marines ( 134 points ) with 85 points and then you get to fight again.

 Mr. Grey wrote:

Quasistellar wrote:
They could easily do simultaneous codex releases. Just use digital. Model releases could still be spaced out -- just make datasheets free online like AoS.

It's easy peasy. Literally the only reason they don't do it is because they believe the current method maximizes profit. It's that simple.

I think you underestimate how many designers you'd need in order to simultaneously work on and then release codexes for all... 18? factions at the same time.

Nevermind how overwhelmed game stores would be at having to guess potential sales numbers for that many books at the same time.

Say what? They don't have to work on them all at once--just release them all at once. Do you think, for example, that the Tau codex hasn't been written yet? That's pretty naive. I'm not 100% certain, but from the what playtesters have said (in a round-about "can't break NDA" way), all the codexes were being tested before 9th release. And regarding books: I specifically stated digital. Of course physical copies are held up by production limitations and store space, etc. But if it was all digital they wouldn't need to print so many books.

Again, it's very easily doable. This isn't even really a question or in doubt. They could digitally release the core rules and all codexes at the start of every new edition. Datasheets free online (like AoS). Datasheets being tied to the codexes is an arbitrary thing -- there's no need if you go digital. They simply choose not to because they believe (probably correctly) that their current method maximizes profit, for both them and retailers.

It's really that simple. People can be angry about it all they want, but unless the money stops flowing, or they have data that says otherwise, they'll continue this way. I think the only thing that might bring a change to this cycle is if the app takes off in a big way, but the way they are badly botching it makes me have doubts.

Quasistellar wrote:


Say what? They don't have to work on them all at once--just release them all at once. Do you think, for example, that the Tau codex hasn't been written yet? That's pretty naive. I'm not 100% certain, but from the what playtesters have said (in a round-about "can't break NDA" way), all the codexes were being tested before 9th release. And regarding books: I specifically stated digital. Of course physical copies are held up by production limitations and store space, etc. But if it was all digital they wouldn't need to print so many books.

Again, it's very easily doable. This isn't even really a question or in doubt. They could digitally release the core rules and all codexes at the start of every new edition. Datasheets free online (like AoS). Datasheets being tied to the codexes is an arbitrary thing -- there's no need if you go digital. They simply choose not to because they believe (probably correctly) that their current method maximizes profit, for both them and retailers.

It's really that simple. People can be angry about it all they want, but unless the money stops flowing, or they have data that says otherwise, they'll continue this way. I think the only thing that might bring a change to this cycle is if the app takes off in a big way, but the way they are badly botching it makes me have doubts.

When would they have done that? Between the marine codexes they pushed out something like 25 books or more.

Beardedragon wrote:

Voss wrote:

Beardedragon wrote:

Table wrote:
The current system on phased releases does more harm than good. Not only is it far harder to combat power creep with a phased release but it leaves some armies at the end of the current edition, making so they have to play most of the edition with a huge handicap. It seems to me that to write and release all/most factions at edition release seems to be the best bet. Not to mention that some factions that need a update most are put on the back burner for more popular factions (thousand sons).

Im guessing it is about money. Not sure why else they would adopt a phased release of codex. Your opinions?

Because they are greedy donkey-caves thats why.

Most of the codexes are already written at this time. its wrong for people to assume they write one codex, then release it, then on to the next. They dont. Most are already written. They just want more money, they are greedy.

Not sure why you believe they're 'already written.'

It isn't a simple matter of 'write book, release book.' There are a lot of steps to the production of any book, writing is only part of it (layout, art, photographs, revision, editing, more revision, etc, getting the final document ready for publication, then printing, then shipping). Yes, multiple books will be in process at the same time, but they'll be a different stages of that process, and involve different people at those various stages. They aren't sitting on a hard drive of finished works, and nefariously scheming ways of... not... publishing them, for 'greedy money' reasons.

Mate.. to make the codexes they do not write one book at a time. They write several to put them somewhat in line with each other. Its not like star wars episode 7 8 and 9 where they just made one movie after the other with no visible path of where they were going.

They write several at a time. By the time the DG codex was done, so was the drukhari one. There have been people working for GW who has stated as much, that they actually do write several books at once, not one book at a time.

I know. I said that they work on several at once there are different writers and different stages to book production. But that's completely different from you're original assertion that _most_ are already written.
Having two or three in development simultaneously is an order of magnitude different than wanting to believe that the majority of books for this edition are already _finished_.

And playtest rules for a codex are also different than the whole book being finished- obviously playtesting (even limited playtesting) generates feedback and revision- that's a repeated process from the midpoint of the book, not the end.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Quasistellar wrote:


Say what? They don't have to work on them all at once--just release them all at once. Do you think, for example, that the Tau codex hasn't been written yet? That's pretty naive. I'm not 100% certain, but from the what playtesters have said (in a round-about "can't break NDA" way), all the codexes were being tested before 9th release. And regarding books: I specifically stated digital. Of course physical copies are held up by production limitations and store space, etc. But if it was all digital they wouldn't need to print so many books.

Again, it's very easily doable. This isn't even really a question or in doubt. They could digitally release the core rules and all codexes at the start of every new edition. Datasheets free online (like AoS). Datasheets being tied to the codexes is an arbitrary thing -- there's no need if you go digital. They simply choose not to because they believe (probably correctly) that their current method maximizes profit, for both them and retailers.

It's really that simple. People can be angry about it all they want, but unless the money stops flowing, or they have data that says otherwise, they'll continue this way. I think the only thing that might bring a change to this cycle is if the app takes off in a big way, but the way they are badly botching it makes me have doubts.

When would they have done that? Between the marine codexes they pushed out something like 25 books or more.

Weird assumptions all around this thread in regards to relating release dates to the development.

I'm not sure I understand your question. When would they have written the 9th ed codexes? Same time they already did it. Just wait until they're all done then drop them all at once.

The question isnt when "would" they (in the past), it's when "could" they. The answer is : next edition. That's when they "could". I highly doubt they will though.

Still, I continue to be baffled by people thinking GW "couldn't" do this. They clearly could, but they haven't and won't for the foreseeable future. Because money.

GW sends books to the printer 6 months in advance of the anticipated release date. If they were releasing one every two weeks, that'd be 12 that are already done and sent off, with another probably 4-5 still in process. Even if they were only planning on releasing one a month, that'd still be 6 done and another 4-5 in varying stages of being finished. If they had waited on putting out 9th edition till this summer, they could absolutely have released all the codexes at the same time as the edition dropped. They don't because it's bad business, not because it's impossible.

I think GW’s release cycle is a large part of the reason Warhammer products have remained the dominant fantasy / sci fi games for around 30 years. They manage to keep their fans continuously engaged and buying more products, multiple armies, multiple books, etc.

Quasistellar wrote:


Weird assumptions all around this thread in regards to relating release dates to the development.

I'm not sure I understand your question. When would they have written the 9th ed codexes? Same time they already did it. Just wait until they're all done then drop them all at once.

The question isnt when "would" they (in the past), it's when "could" they. The answer is : next edition. That's when they "could". I highly doubt they will though.

Still, I continue to be baffled by people thinking GW "couldn't" do this. They clearly could, but they haven't and won't for the foreseeable future. Because money.

So instead of writing the 23 books they worked on the past ~14 months you think they could produce an additional 29 books at quality? That's 52 books or 3 to 5 books a month done months before 9th would release.

People wonder why GW has so many typos. This would make it so, so much worse.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think GW’s release cycle is a large part of the reason Warhammer products have remained the dominant fantasy / sci fi games for around 30 years. They manage to keep their fans continuously engaged and buying more products, multiple armies, multiple books, etc.

Correlation doesn't equal causation - I'd argue - people will buy GW products because they are really good quality in a game that people know is going to stick around.

What matters is that the codexes are released in chunks of grups, so that all codexes would be released after maybe 2 or 3 times. So they would release 1/3 of their codexes the first time, then another 1/3 and the last 1/3 by the end.

At least that would make more sense than this.

I would prefer them all to be in order before they go but anything really, is better than this.

A new edition comes out maybe once every 3 or so years. Thats 3 years to start making new codexes. GW is, as far as im aware, not just a small company its massive these days, they earn a ton of millions. Lets not pretend its too much work to prepare all the codexes for the next 10th edition release so it can be released at the same time, or at least over 2 halves.