The Rumour Thread

[Still-young]

9th it seems is coming in July. There’s a competition at the moment to win a ‘40k mystery box’ which is most likely the starter box, and it says the prize will be dispatched in July. Where everything else ends up fitting around that, I guess we’ll see over the next few weeks. 

[RuneBrush]

2 hours ago, sandlemad said:

RE: that release schedule, it does have the weirdness of what seems to be the final Psychic Awakening book, Pariah, released after 9th edition 40k. It's odd because Pariah's the book that most clearly is intended to lead up to the return of the Silent King and the big push of the necrons.

A group of friends were talking about this the other day.  The lockdown has messed up the release schedule quite a bit, but the release of a new edition of one of their core games will have had too much investment in the form of resources and logistics in place to delay it for anything but a pandemic.  Unlike previous editions of the game, the Psychic Awakening books are still usable with the new version of the game, so all we should face is a month or so of continuity issues in the story arc.

[GeneralZero]

It is not one of the core games. It is THE CORE of their business. It is THE mainstream product to attract some new players. Nothing comparable in scale of business to some random papers like PAs. PAs are already in the pasty. PAs will be thrown asap the be PA9 ready with Szeras (nice necron mini). Then, D-Day 9th... They can't sacrifice anything in the 40k 9th ed  because it is their main launch for the new business year. Everything else, if already- scheduled (read: before lockdown) will orbite around this, fitting here and there if possible before 9th. (i.e. lumineth starts asap early june?).

 

[silverstu]

39 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

A group of friends were talking about this the other day.  The lockdown has messed up the release schedule quite a bit, but the release of a new edition of one of their core games will have had too much investment in the form of resources and logistics in place to delay it for anything but a pandemic.  Unlike previous editions of the game, the Psychic Awakening books are still usable with the new version of the game, so all we should face is a month or so of continuity issues in the story arc.

Yeah I think they will push out the Psychic Awakening books quickly - its mostly rules and fluff content with few models suits easy enough. The whole series has been building towards 9th and I reckon they have a lot to release off the back of it with the new factory becoming operational, all the things we expected with Psychic Awakening in terms of range refreshes for some of the factions are probably all planned out. Thats the 40k side of things, they need to get the Lumineth and Sons out before they can touch anything else for AoS and we have no idea what's coming beyond them. I'd say the Lumineth box set will be out pretty sharpish, Sons might fit in around 40k at the end of July. 

[KingBrodd]

2 hours ago, GeneralZero said:

The problem of SoB is not that it is a one kit+book: the problem is that it is only one EXPENSIVE kit. For those that are many (majority?) of us that collect and/or play both AoS and 40K, having in the very same month the sons+new 40K is a really big expense, an invest that many won't do. But if GW acts as usual, maintaining the hype for both means that they will strongly separate the releases : at least one month separation I think.

 

2 hours ago, Overread said:

Son's has one bonus - its one big expensive kit; but its also a mercenary kit. They are being made just like Imperial Knights in that the idea is clearly that there will be a core who will buy them on their own and then many others who perhaps get one giant for each of their armies and then just throw their giants together into an army after that. 

The barrier of entry to the Sons is high but like Overread states the Mega Gargants can be used as Mercs for literally every Faction so technically speaking when Lumineth drop, if the Sons drop around the same time, those not interested in the Lumineth will have a brand new model for their army if they so choose.

[sandlemad]

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

A group of friends were talking about this the other day.  The lockdown has messed up the release schedule quite a bit, but the release of a new edition of one of their core games will have had too much investment in the form of resources and logistics in place to delay it for anything but a pandemic.  Unlike previous editions of the game, the Psychic Awakening books are still usable with the new version of the game, so all we should face is a month or so of continuity issues in the story arc.

1 hour ago, GeneralZero said:

It is not one of the core games. It is THE CORE of their business. It is THE mainstream product to attract some new players. Nothing comparable in scale of business to some random papers like PAs. PAs are already in the pasty. PAs will be thrown asap the be PA9 ready with Szeras (nice necron mini). Then, D-Day 9th... They can't sacrifice anything in the 40k 9th ed  because it is their main launch for the new business year. Everything else, if already- scheduled (read: before lockdown) will orbite around this, fitting here and there if possible before 9th. (i.e. lumineth starts asap early june?).

Yeah, that was my thought process. If one release has to get moved, it's not going to be their most popular product and the fulcrum of their release schedule.

It is a little unfortunate thematically though, above and beyond just continuity issues. It's like pushing out AoS 2nd. ed with the necroquake, etc. before Malign Portents. Some interesting buildup, tension and background (possibly the only interesting stuff to come out of PA)  just didn't go according to plan. Very low down on the list of serious covid-19 related issues but still.

[Chikout]

I'm not sure what you guys are smoking. They are absolutely going to delay the release of 9th edition. They are also going to release all the psychic awakening books before 9th comes out.

8th edition was announced a full 2 months before it released. By that metric I expect to see it in August. 

As for AOS, in 2017 there were 4 battletomes in the first four months of the year then nothing at all for the rest of the year. I expect to have a long wait for the next battletome after SoB and Lumineth.

[HorticulusTGA]

43 minutes ago, Chikout said:

I'm not sure what you guys are smoking. They are absolutely going to delay the release of 9th edition. They are also going to release all the psychic awakening books before 9th comes out.

8th edition was announced a full 2 months before it released. By that metric I expect to see it in August. 

As for AOS, in 2017 there were 4 battletomes in the first four months of the year then nothing at all for the rest of the year. I expect to have a long wait for the next battletome after SoB and Lumineth.

Of course.

And all the releases like the 3 remaining PA, Lumineth, the WHQ Zoat, are ready to launch in warehouse across the world, so there are no reorganization needed whatsoever. They just have to release more a week and be done with it. We already saw weeks with tons of preorder, just like the recent Engine Wars one. 

[GeneralZero]

1 hour ago, Chikout said:

I'm not sure what you guys are smoking. They are absolutely going to delay the release of 9th edition. They are also going to release all the psychic awakening books before 9th comes out.

Absolutly NOT! Situation not comparable. They have to go FULL FLOW of business ASAP to get back a max of the lack of income during lockdown. They have to take the oportunity that many people want to spend money: the best for them is to spend it at GW, not for a new pair of shoes. They don't have to do a heavy teaching about v9 like it was in v8 because v9=v8.5 (like AoS 2 did for AoS) . People are ready. 

Who cares about PA? Only 2 remain out, PA7 is already preorder in 2 days. The 2 other PAs have close to no mini (except Szeras).

1 hour ago, Chikout said:

As for AOS, in 2017 there were 4 battletomes in the first four months of the year then nothing at all for the rest of the year. I expect to have a long wait for the next battletome after SoB and Lumineth.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that you are right. But if for me Lumineth are out ASAP (just after admech) , I don't see SoB before second half of july or august (And god knows that I'm waiting this Giant!!!). The only thing that we know for second semester:

- Codex: necron, space marine

- 40K miniatures:  big necron release, primaris release

- the dance of codex v9 is beggining, probably fast paced with of course here and there few miniatures update and new release.

- AoS: we are in the fog here (in fact, it is a speciality in UK, isn't it? 😉 )

[Jaskier]

 

21 minutes ago, GeneralZero said:

Who cares about PA? Only 2 remain out, PA7 is already preorder in 2 days. The 2 other PAs have close to no mini (except Szeras).

It doesn't matter if you care about Psychic Awakening books or not, they're still going to get released before 9th Edition drops. Chikout is 100% right here. I'd wager we're at absolute minimum a month away from the release period of 9th, but most likely two or three months out. 

[Morglum StormBasha]

I’m inclined to believe the original schedule listed above and would think 9th is a mid to late July release. Shops aren’t open in the uk yet, at the earliest 15 June and they aren’t going to want to release something as big as 9th online only.  They’ll want to know footfall to their physical shops has increased again and that all those dark imperium sitting on those now dusty shelves can sell for a few weeks.

[Chikout]

55 minutes ago, GeneralZero said:

Absolutly NOT! Situation not comparable. They have to go FULL FLOW of business ASAP to get back a max of the lack of income during lockdown. They have to take the oportunity that many people want to spend money: the best for them is to spend it at GW, not for a new pair of shoes. They don't have to do a heavy teaching about v9 like it was in v8 because v9=v8.5 (like AoS 2 did for AoS) . People are ready. 

Who cares about PA? Only 2 remain out, PA7 is already preorder in 2 days. The 2 other PAs have close to no mini (except Szeras).

You've kind of hit at the problem right there. Gw is currently operating at capacity. They can't keep things in stock and the webstore regularly exceeds the maximum amount of traffic they can handle each day. There is absolutely no point in launching 9th edition until stock levels are somewhat back to normal. The new edition will have people buying all sorts of things, not just the starter set. As for financials gw is still on course to make a healthy profit this year despite covid. There is absolutely no financial imperative to rush the next 40k out. 

 

[Overread]

Actually with the long term impact of Covid I think GW can be ok right now to push ahead even if they can't keep everything in stock. Because they aren't alone in the boat - the whole world is in there with them in some form or another. Sure its not ideal, but GW likely can't even operate their factory and warehouse at full output for at least a year or more with social distancing restrictions. This ignores any local or national lockdown happening again or even if one person in their team catches it and then shuts down the whole site for two or more weeks. 

 

The imperative for them to get 9thed out is that they've got other stuff they've already invested in also waiting to go. The risk is that htye end up sitting on millions of £ worth of moulds and design work that they can't sell. Ergo an investment that isn't making any money and is  costing them to store. Better to get it out the door as best they can. They can then steadily slow releases in the future and spread things out; they can regain control by clearing some backlog. 

[SlyRebirth]

Do we know that SoB release is definitely only one model (which has three build options)?

[Overread]

2 minutes ago, SlyRebirth said:

Do we know that SoB release is definitely only one model (which has three build options)?

We don't, but GW has not hinted at anything else. It would be surprising for them to hide all the info on other releases for them, since normally if they have more to come they like to generate hype and tease it in the trailer/marketing. 

[lare2]

3 hours ago, GeneralZero said:

Who cares about PA?

*twiddles thumbs in Death Guard*

[Beliman]

Is there any rule from 9th edition 40k that could be passed to AoS? I'm reading 8th edition 40k and it has some interesting rules that could be fun to play with in AoS.

[EccentricCircle]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

Is there any rule from 9th edition 40k that could be passed to AoS? I'm reading 8th edition 40k and it has some interesting rules that could be fun to play with in AoS.

This is just speculation, since we don't yet know much about 9e, but it seems as though 40K is gradually becoming more "AoS like". They basically updated it to the AoS core mechanics last edition, keeping a few of the bells and whistles that 40K has always had, and which it would have been controversial to remove, so I could easily see it going the other way, with it moving closer to the AoS2 engine. Could be completely wrong though, really who can comprehend why GW do what they do?

[Gotz]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

Is there any rule from 9th edition 40k that could be passed to AoS? I'm reading 8th edition 40k and it has some interesting rules that could be fun to play with in AoS.

the conquest campaign mode looks like its an expanded versión on the campaign system from Warcry, so if its well received i could totally see that coming to AoS.

And maybe the reworked Command Points could influence in some way the AoS CP system, but maybe is better to keep it simple in AoS and not overcomplicate everything

[RuneBrush]

14 hours ago, Chikout said:

You've kind of hit at the problem right there. Gw is currently operating at capacity. They can't keep things in stock and the webstore regularly exceeds the maximum amount of traffic they can handle each day. There is absolutely no point in launching 9th edition until stock levels are somewhat back to normal. The new edition will have people buying all sorts of things, not just the starter set. As for financials gw is still on course to make a healthy profit this year despite covid. There is absolutely no financial imperative to rush the next 40k out. 

One of the issues is that new 40k is going to be taking up a monumental amount of warehouse - warehouse that they can't use for other things until they've shifted that stock in some form or another.  As my boss frequently says, having stock sat doing in a warehouse is costly because we still have to pay business rates on that space.

More than happy to agree to disagree and see what the release schedule actually turns out like!

2 minutes ago, Gotz said:

the conquest campaign mode looks like its an expanded versión on the campaign system from Warcry, so if its well received i could totally see that coming to AoS.

And maybe the reworked Command Points could influence in some way the AoS CP system, but maybe is better to keep it simple in AoS and not overcomplicate everything

I'm really looking forward to the conquest campaign.  If feels like the child of Path to Glory and Warcry!  Terrain rules and command point changes are also worth looking at, although stratagems are fairly different to how our command abilities work.

[Overread]

I don't think AoS needs a commandpoint overhaul. 40K is having that done to deal with the issue of souped armies, AoS doesn't actually have that problem at all at this stage, if anything pure armies are generally superior to Grand Alliance ones. It also seems most of the fanbase is very happy with that situation, meanwhile those who want a more allied forces approach have several armies to pick from such as Cities of Sigmar and Legions of Nagash. Rather than cobbling together whole armies it simply cobbles together allied forces within the lore within a single army tome so that it balances and works alongside regular pure armies. 

 

It's one area that, 2.0 wise, AoS has really got working very well for itself. 

[silverstu]

One thing I'm really pleased to see them take form AoS in 40k is how they approach ranges- the Necron release looks similar in quality to the AOS armies in terms of the character of the faction as well the quality of the sculpts. AoS releases have to build the entire feel of a faction from scratch and in my opinion, they do this incredibly well with the clam pack characters and little touches on bases right up to the centrepiece models. The necron update looks to have all these elements- I'm hoping they take this approach as they refresh all the factions [especially Nids!].

 

I know they have 2 Psychic Awakening books to get out yet but they have a month to drop them before 9th- seems easy and sets up some of the factions for the new edition. They will be wanting to get 9th out on time-  its probably sitting in the warehouses right now and has been for a while. They Ardmore likely to move the Lumineth/WarCry etc around a bit. The disruption to production probably is more going to be felt 3-6 months down the line..

Really looking forward to what AoS has coming down the line with these hints of Warcry/Underworlds or Quest.. all looking very interesting..

[zilberfrid]

From what I can tell on a retailer's site, the spreadsheet from before seems accurate, at least for the units I am interested in. They have the new prices listed

Edited May 29, 2020 by zilberfrid

[NkfPanda]

3 hours ago, silverstu said:

One thing I'm really pleased to see them take form AoS in 40k is how they approach ranges- the Necron release looks similar in quality to the AOS armies in terms of the character of the faction as well the quality of the sculpts. AoS releases have to build the entire feel of a faction from scratch and in my opinion, they do this incredibly well with the clam pack characters and little touches on bases right up to the centrepiece models. The necron update looks to have all these elements- I'm hoping they take this approach as they refresh all the factions [especially Nids!].

 

You are so right! I play both games and I am sure I am biased but the AOS range is so beautiful. I play Harlequins in 40k so my minis are not too shabby but 40k really needs a huge overhaul on minis and I am hoping the Necrons are just the tip of the iceberg. Armies like Eldar could use some love. I am so glad the Lumineth range wasn't for me because I have more time to work on the armies I have until something catches my eye maybe next fall/winter.

[Kramer]

25 minutes ago, NkfPanda said:

I am so glad the Lumineth range wasn't for me because I have more time to work on the armies I have until something catches my eye maybe next fall/winter.

my reaction to every release that isn't for me. Dodging bullets left, right and center last year 😂