40K Weekly Roundup 1-26-2014 – Regarding “7th Edition”
Wow – what a chock full of rumors week we’ve had. There is almost too much stuff to keep track of – and a shiny NEW ONE…
In no particular order, here’s what the last seven days brought us in Warhammer 40,000 news and rumors and a new one for you at the end:
40k-WFB 2014 Q1-2 Schedule
40K Radio’s Rik fills in some of the blanks leading to this rumored schedule:
January – Tyranids (Out)
February – Dwarfs (Sighted in the weekly White Dwarf cover)
March – Imperial Knights (Supported with White Dwarf and Dataslate rules support)
Warseer’s scoopdeta says:
With all the news surrounding Games Workshop over the last couple of weeks I think that it lines up fairly well. I was able to grab lunch with an old friend about a month ago who works for GW (not a local store croney). We talked everything GW and of course my drug of choice Warhammer Fantasy. He said that over the next coupel of months there would be drastic changes to the way GW does business…this was just in general. He didn’t give me too many specifics, but now that the White Dwarf changes have hit the street openly and the news of a revamped website with FW product offerings and all it lines up. Once again he didnt come out and say that GW was going to be taking a hit with the earnings, but he stated that many of the changes had to do with new strategies to increase revenue and such. He has been traveling non-stop for new training and meetings, so it was easy to see something was coming down the pipe.
So on to my main point. I have always been a fantasy fanatic…game of choice hands down. He stated that there would be a new release which would change the way fantasy is currently played. Currently, the idea is to have huge blocks of infantry and high priced special characters and beasts which makes for higher costs to players and conceptually more revenue for GW. However this did not work fo rone reason or another. So it was obvious some changes were needed. The new approach will aim at bringing more people back into the game by making it smaller and more affordable. The new rule set would focus on making warhammer more of a small block and skirmish based game with fewer miniatures needed. The new box set would have less miniatures, but would basically set people up to get in the game and playing at a much reduced cost.
So he didnt give me the finer deatails that I would have liked, but he did say this would happen this summer for sure…not next year. He basically said that GW is being forced to make some changes due to some cash flow issues…which has become evident since we had lunch several weeks ago. It seems like he was pretty spot on so far with his vague statements…haha…take it as you will. But I have faith in this for many reasons. It seems with everything going on that it would line up well and make sense. GW needs a way to bring more people back intothe game while also doing soemthing to help bring fanatsy back up to strength.
Followed up by this clarification:
Perhaps my terminology was distorted a bit in my OP. I do not believe my friend was indicating that this would be a “skirmish” game similar to Hordes or infinity. What he had stated was that it would head back in the direction of some older editions where smaller blocks were more viable. Seems people missed the smaller block protion and just focused on the skirmish portion of my OP. I am have no idea if he was saying this would be a new edition or a supplement. But my feeling was that this would be a replacement of the current ruleset. And it does line up with the smaller boxes (10 minis per). People could by a box or two and have a whole unit…instead of having to spend $200 on just one unit at 40 strong. This would allow GW to maintain the current price point while not scaring people away with the overall price of an army as they would now inherently be smaller.
If you like Titans, and read Mechanicus over and over – fasten your seatbelts boys and girls…
Via 40K Radio
As you may have seen on other sites Febraury is all about the Dwarfs. So for you fans of the short and bearded get pumped. March will see the release of Imperial Knights. This year is shaping up to be a good one.
-Rik
Independent Minis Coming for 40K – WFB
There are conflicting details of exact kits involved, but the meat of the rumors are that the 100% linking of miniature releases to the currently released Codex/Army Book are coming to an end. In a return to the days of many years past we can look for independent minis being released that will be sprinkled around the various factions all during 2014.
Maybe it was the realization that people don’t like to wait 6 years for new minis for their armies, or maybe GW REALLY, REALLY wants out of Finecast but here are the details we got:
– A range of 30-40 minis are planned
– These are split across 40k and WFB
– None of these are named characters (which will remain small batch runs in resin of some type)
– All of these are currently Finecast or originally metal kits
– Most will be single minis redone as plastic clampacks (mainly HQs), while some may be smaller kits. Large kits and vehicles will wait till their faction books come around.
– Released roughly 3 per month, probably tied into the new weekly release schedule.
Commonly named culprits are:
Major Daemons
Harlequins
Runepriests
Cryptek
Sanguinary Priest
Chaos Lord
etc…
Word on WFB 9th and 40K “Not 7th”
Word is shifting from almost all the good rumormongors over the last 2-3 weeks. Tongues are now wagging saying that the BOTH WFB and 40K are getting updated rules this year.
For WFB, you have the rumors above of the new “lean and mean” direction for 9th Edition said to coming this year in a new rulebook or other expansion format.
For 40K, the latest word is that the updated rulebook IS coming this summer. Look for a rulebook only at first that GW is calling “Not 7th Edition” and it will contain the following:
via 40K Radio 1-24-2014
Warhammer 7th Edition is a real thing for 2014.
1) It will purely be a book release.
2) It could be released as early as May.
3) Rulebook with incorporate data slates, escalation, stronghold assault, and some tweaks.
~We are currently running down even more solid rumors so check back next week – the rumor train only seems to be picking up speed as we cruise into 2014.
