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 lord_blackfang wrote:
So Glaive and Falchion will come out at the same time it seems, that's a bold move, I can't see too many people affording both in the same month.

There's also the new Whirlwind and any other new vehicles in the tank DLC book (Ascalon?).

Can't wait for Whirlwind. Rocket pod is almost as big as the tank itself!

Would be a great time for a surprise Sicaran variant

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
Would be a great time for a surprise Sicaran variant

We are lacking Volkite & flamer ones!

 Overread wrote:
At the same time those kits will likely last more than a decade. So plenty of sales time.

I would hope so. Really, what do you even foresee them being replaced by in 2036? They're already plastic, and I think GW sprue tech has reached a plateau. So what would be updated?

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Overread wrote:
At the same time those kits will likely last more than a decade. So plenty of sales time.

I would hope so. Really, what do you even foresee them being replaced by in 2036? They're already plastic, and I think GW sprue tech has reached a plateau. So what would be updated?

Fresh designs - even if the tech enters a period of stagnation on advance there's still taking the concept of the unit in a new creative direction. GW has done that before many times.

But why? The Falchion here is remarkably faithful to the original Falchion from 12 years ago. Why would the design need to be any different 12 years from now?

 Ashiraya wrote:
But why? The Falchion here is remarkably faithful to the original Falchion from 12 years ago. Why would the design need to be any different 12 years from now?

Scale creep. In 12 years the new rhino kit will be the same size as old land raiders, so everything will need to be scaled up.

I’m joking, but there is also a non-zero chance that it will happen...

I would agree for infantry, but vehicle scale has stayed remarkably consistent. The 2022 Deimos Rhino (and variants built on its chassis) is of essentially identical scale to the 2002 Mars Rhino (which is still available).

The Rhino was already undersized and out of proportion with the infantry back then, but this was accepted as a compromise to keep its size as a miniature and game piece reasonable. That excuse remains as relevant as ever.

Terminators on the other hand, oh boy. I still think one of the funniest things I saw was last summer when 40k players saw the Saturnine box. I saw some 40k players on reddit ranting and raving about how the Saturnines make the Leviathan Indomitus Terminators look "small" and "pathetic" and how GW needs to refresh the Leviathan Terminators to "true scale".

This community sure has some size queens, huh?

 Ashiraya wrote:
I would agree for infantry, but vehicle scale has stayed remarkably consistent. The 2022 Deimos Rhino (and variants built on its chassis) is of essentially identical scale to the 2002 Mars Rhino (which is still available).

The Rhino was already undersized and out of proportion with the infantry back then, but this was accepted as a compromise to keep its size as a miniature and game piece reasonable. That excuse remains as relevant as ever.

Terminators on the other hand, oh boy. I still think one of the funniest things I saw was last summer when 40k players saw the Saturnine box. I saw some 40k players on reddit ranting and raving about how the Saturnines make the Leviathan Indomitus Terminators look "small" and "pathetic" and how GW needs to refresh the Leviathan Terminators to "true scale".

This community sure has some size queens, huh?

It’s not the size of the marine, it’s how you field them.

I agree that modern plastics are pretty solid, with not a whole lot of reasons to replace them. Sprues are pretty tightly packed, detail is crisp. There is no reason a modern sculpt couldn't see decades of service. But GW wants to sell us new kits, so what excuses could they come up with to get old grognards to repurchase their armies? Adding more options to the kit would be one. While the HH is more set/described then 40k, they could add new variants/options. Scale creep is another. Even if tanks are generally pretty stable, there may come a point where they need to re-do the turret gunners/commanders/drivers/etc to match the modern infantry standards.

They definitely want to keep doing more releases. It's really the only alternative, either your game gets new stuff or it gets killed off altogether.

I hope they do new stuff rather than re-releasing old, and that they think it through well. Some of the new stuff since the Heresy revamp in 2022 has been very promising. The Kratos and the Auxilia sentinels are very good, the Araknae is unexciting but perfectly inoffensive. The Saturnines have been... so-so, but if that's the weirdest stuff we're getting it's fine.

I do worry about the future though and what will happen when they run into the inevitable issue of range bloat. I would be very sad if, for example, the release of HH 4th edition (presumably in 2028) saw all HH 2.0 marine kits be booted to legends, like what happened to the Stormcast Eternals....

Easy.

Further expansion kits.

For fancy Marine units? Fancy upgrade Sprues. With, let’s face it, Mk II, III and VI having long since paid for themselves? Just takes a bit of skill to produce cloaks and sniper rifle stuff for Recon. And so on and so forth.

Sure, it might take a while for upgrade Sprues to wipe their nose? But each requires a fresh, near as you’ll get to pure profit purchase of the base unit. Or pack them in together, and balance the scales of investment that way.

I would love that, but I worry GW would notice falling profits (because, obviously, a Word Bearers Command Sprue would sell less than the Breacher Sprue does) and would feel compelled to flip the table regardless in the hopes of making people buy what they already have.

All ties back to near as you’ll get to Phree Munneh of selling the core set.

It’s the same approach as resin upgrade kits, without for some, including myself, the offputting choice of materials.

There’s also the economy of scale. Sure, any given Legion Exclusive Unit is going to have comparatively restricted sales. But, if removing what I’ll call for argument’s sake the resin barrier gets more people into the game in the first place? That is where you make your money.

Whilst we don’t, and will never know, the exact unit sales of anything GW produces? We can look at their overall size and financial performance to see that the cost of investment in a plastic mould is no longer the hurdle it once was. Spesh as, to the best of my knowledge, it’s been a while since the tooling itself was brought fully in-house.

Given we’ve a set of plastic Hive Scum and Hangars On for Necromunda? Also the Ambots and Ogryns? I dare say we’re well past the point where a given kit has to sell absolutely squillions of copies to be a worthwhile investment.

And that I accept is perhaps comparing apples and oranges. Maybe. Ish.

A new edition in 3 years will (unfortunately) give them the pretext for messing about with existing kits, if they want to 'refresh' them to boost sales.

If we’re still on a 3 year schedule.

Evidence against is they now have four main systems (40K, HH, ToW and AoS).

Evidence for, currently, is 11th Ed seemingly coming this year, in-line with the 3 year schedule.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If we’re still on a 3 year schedule.

Evidence against is they now have four main systems (40K, HH, ToW and AoS).

Evidence for, currently, is 11th Ed seemingly coming this year, in-line with the 3 year schedule.

Next year will be interesting as it would be time for both TOW and AoS but I wouldn't be suprised if TOW is the outlier and gets longer editions as it also is the outlier in terms of releases with all the resin stuff and old re-releases. Its obviously not on the same level as the two main games 40k and AoS but also HH as that gets a lot of releases and plastic so also far better than what TOW is getting.

Yeah, it’s a tricky one to work out.

We should know for certain if we’ve moved to a 4 year cycle with the next edition of Heresy. Because we can’t be sure when such a currently hypothetical cycle began.

We may know next year when TOW gets a major plastic release in addition to a new Edition of another game

I personally expect that TOW shifts away from old armies to very new ones, but as long as those are just minorities it will be kept parallel

Same way HH was set aside until there was enough unique plastic coming to support it

In 10 years, they'll have advanced the sprue creation technology to the point where smaller models can have twice the detail and fiddly bits for small kid-hands. They'll be honestly impressive. GW will use this to market the game at a slightly smaller scale of minis, allowing you to field larger armies on the same sized tables (not epic/LI scale, but completely random 23.5mm scale that no other producer uses). Now all your existing minis are way too large, although some people will claim that the old firstborn models and old-skool dreads are finally appropriately scaled.

This would invalidate every purchase you've made, including terrain, allowing them to sell you everything all over again.

Then in 12 years they'll increase the scale back to something closer to what we have now.

Azog wrote:
In 10 years, they'll have advanced the sprue creation technology to the point where smaller models can have twice the detail and fiddly bits for small kid-hands. They'll be honestly impressive. GW will use this to market the game at a slightly smaller scale of minis, allowing you to field larger armies on the same sized tables (not epic/LI scale, but completely random 23.5mm scale that no other producer uses). Now all your existing minis are way too large, although some people will claim that the old firstborn models and old-skool dreads are finally appropriately scaled.

This would invalidate every purchase you've made, including terrain, allowing them to sell you everything all over again.

Then in 12 years they'll increase the scale back to something closer to what we have now.

Don't type that kind of thing out loud! GW will hear it and think its a good idea.... and they won't even give you credit.

Citadel FineScale!

The interesting thing for me will be how they 'force' Heresy gamers onto the new edition with an aggressive release cycle. My observation (please correct me) is that 40k/AoS players seem to just immediately move onto a new edition, whereas with Heresy there still seem to be a lot of groups still playing 1st or 2nd edition.
I myself have made my gaming group sign in blood that we won't move onto a 4th edition if that comes in 2 years time, simply because learning 3rd has been such an onerous process. The game itself I would give 3/5 - it does the job of getting marines on a tabletop and blowing each other up, albeit ungracefully. So from a rules perspective I can't believe the next one will do anything revolutionary, but will just turn a few things upside down and addle my aging brain.

Think also the setting being 'fixed' now makes it harder to keep introducing new units and kits - they managed to bring in Saturnine (which I think just about managed to find a gap), but not sure where you go from there? If 4th edition comes with a new mkIV kit will that be enough to make everyone switch to the new rules, or don't they care as long as the kits sell?

The easiest way to force people into the new edition is having new mechanics that make it very hard to backport new units/models (the more detailed rules are, the easier to add new units from future releases)

Like if the difference between a shiny new unit and an existing one would be completely gone if using the old edition, it is already enough for people to start using the new one because once you reach the point that you need to add new rules to make something work you could just use the new rules as well

The other part is to make the game mediocre, so nobody playing it is really cares enough and the new rules being a sidegrade that does things differently is enough reason to play it simple because people weren't happy with the current version anyway

Hence why people still play 1st Edition, that was good and detailed enough to not move on.
Same way Warhammer Fantasy 6th is still the go to system for a lot of people because anything new can easily be added and the modifications to make it work well where already made by the community during its release.

 Pacific wrote:
The interesting thing for me will be how they 'force' Heresy gamers onto the new edition with an aggressive release cycle. My observation (please correct me) is that 40k/AoS players seem to just immediately move onto a new edition, whereas with Heresy there still seem to be a lot of groups still playing 1st or 2nd edition.
I myself have made my gaming group sign in blood that we won't move onto a 4th edition if that comes in 2 years time, simply because learning 3rd has been such an onerous process. The game itself I would give 3/5 - it does the job of getting marines on a tabletop and blowing each other up, albeit ungracefully. So from a rules perspective I can't believe the next one will do anything revolutionary, but will just turn a few things upside down and addle my aging brain.

Think also the setting being 'fixed' now makes it harder to keep introducing new units and kits - they managed to bring in Saturnine (which I think just about managed to find a gap), but not sure where you go from there? If 4th edition comes with a new mkIV kit will that be enough to make everyone switch to the new rules, or don't they care as long as the kits sell?

Unit drag, I guess. There’s more than a few things in 3rd Ed Heresy which didn’t exist in 1st and 2nd. Yes, there’ll be community ports for those and well there should be.

But, outside of your local group, there’s eventually going to be a lack of consensus on which Fan Rules are appropriate. Whereas each GW edition lacks that problem.

Overall, I don’t think GW particularly care exactly which edition you, I or the bloke over there actually play. The rules aren’t the money maker. What they need is buying the models.

So far, 2nd Ed lowered the price and skills bar by moving so much to plastic. 3rd is continuing that, particularly with the Marine Super Heavies. No, £125.00 isn’t cheap for a Fellblade. But it’s still a fraction of the resin price, even before you factor in how much nicer it is to work with a precision plastic kit over resin.

What that does is make the game more accessible in price and skill set. And so there’ll be plenty of folk like myself diving in properly for the first time with 2nd, happy to go on to the next edition. But even if I stuck with 1st or 2nd? I’m still buying those new kits. That is where GW is making its money. And I’m pretty confident there’ll be a pretty decent number of people who got started in 1st Ed using the new plastics to expand their own armies even further.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

So far, 2nd Ed lowered the price and skills bar by moving so much to plastic. 3rd is continuing that, particularly with the Marine Super Heavies. No, £125.00 isn’t cheap for a Fellblade. But it’s still a fraction of the resin price, even before you factor in how much nicer it is to work with a precision plastic kit over resin.

It's also fairly likely that GW are getting increased sales from those updated plastics, as there certainly seemed to be a lot of HH players using FW China for resin kits previously.

I could order a fellblade from somewhere like Wayland for £100 and get it delivered tomorrow. Discounted plastic kits that can be grabbed at short notice may even be competing with recasts now.

Pages from the Black Books – The Iron Hands

Next week we’ll be continuing on our tour of the Space Marine Legions with a stop at those responsible for Ferrus Manus’ untimely death – the Emperor’s Children.

 kodos wrote:
The easiest way to force people into the new edition is having new mechanics that make it very hard to backport new units/models (the more detailed rules are, the easier to add new units from future releases)

Like if the difference between a shiny new unit and an existing one would be completely gone if using the old edition, it is already enough for people to start using the new one because once you reach the point that you need to add new rules to make something work you could just use the new rules as well

Incidentally, I have seen a ton of people homebrew popular Kratos rules for 1.0, Saturnine rules for 2.0, and so on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 xttz wrote:
It's also fairly likely that GW are getting increased sales from those updated plastics, as there certainly seemed to be a lot of HH players using FW China for resin kits previously.

Oh they absolutely are. I am no fan of recasts - I was gifted a recast unit by a friend and the pain of cleaning up the double mould lines (one from the original model, one from the recast), mould slip and so on was so bad that it solidly turned me off the whole notion. But if someone is priced out of the FW range then there's not much to be done, and aside from single characters, plastic kits tend to be a lot cheaper.

It is interesting how said single characters have caught up in cost though. A 40k Primaris Librarian is barely cheaper than a 30k resin Librarian.

The Scouring timeline – How the Warhammer Studio worked with Black Library authors on the new series


One titbit from it -

Here are a few extracts from our Scouring master timeline – it’s unlikely that all of these events will appear in either novel or gaming book form, but they give a hint of things to come.

So does that confirm that Scouring gaming books are coming?

Scouring/Warhammer 31k!

At least the 5th major game system is reviled!