Warhammer 40K: What’s After Dark Angels & Drukhari?
Let’s talk about release schedules and what could be after the Dark Angels and Drukhari for Warhammer 40,000.
This past weekend the Death Guard went up for Pre-order. Games Workshop had to shift their release from last year to, well, now. Previously they had also announced the Dark Angels and the Drukhari were next in line for a release. But those also got rejiggered release schedules. After that? Well…it’s all up in the air. GW has at least given folks a timeframe for these new codexes which boils down to a new codex or expansion every month for January, February, and March.
Well, it’s January and we’re getting the Death Guard book. We’ve also got to keep an eye out for the Dark Angels and Drukhari books – that would basically be the releases for February and March. But that doesn’t consider War Zone Charadon Act 1: The Book of Rust.
If I had to guess, The Dark Angels are probably next up. Followed closely by the Drukhari and then (hopefully) around the same time we’ll get this book, too. Why? Because it has rules for the Drukhari also included. In fact, it has rules for four factions:
- Death Guard
- Adeptus Mechanicus
- Imperial Knights
- Drukhari
And here is where things get interesting. Is it possible that Games Workshop wants to crank out a book (or two) for the Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Knights? They did get those cool new models and also an “expansion” with Psychic Awakening: Engine War. Maybe a new codex would be a way for GW to consolidate the Ad Mech back into one single source book. It’s a possibility.
Then, if you’re going to update the Ad Mech, it makes sense to update the Imperial Knights for the current edition, too. Perhaps the Knight book would come out first so those changes and updates could be rolled into the Ad Mech Loyal Knights. That actually makes more sense to me. On top of that, Imperial Knights as a faction is already fairly lightweight in terms of rules and models. Maybe GW is taking the opportunity to re-work a “lighter” codex (like Imperial Knights) to buy time as they sort out the impacts of the Pandemic and Brexit.
We’re not here to talk the politics of the UK, but both of those situations are having some pretty big impacts on UK based companies – one of which is Games Workshop. I don’t envy their logicistal department right now as this seems like a tangled mess of a nightmare to work on.
Another thing to mention is that Games Workshop is also working on new systems and release for Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. AoS is about to get a ton of new Slaaneshi releases thanks to the new Hedonites of Slaanesh book coming. What does that have to do with 40k? Maybe nothing…or maybe it’s a way for GW to prep the pipeline for more Slaaneshi releases in 40k, too. Emperor’s Children anyone? Again, it’s possibility not a guarantee. But if they were working on Slaaneshi releases for 40k, then it would kind of make sense for them to release Drukhari now to pave the way. The Aeldari and closely tied to Slaanesh so all of that would fit, too. That would open up the possiblity of a new Craftworld book – or maybe a unified Ynnari book… Wouldn’t that be something?!
Whatever happened to this whole Warhammer 40,000 plot thread?
I suppose the main point here is that Games Workshop has a lot of directions they could go. The question is which branch will they end up persuing. It’s all kind of up in the air but I’m sure they are sorting out their releases and deliverables as we speak. They are coming off a record half-year and I don’t think they are going to want to waste that momentum.
What do you think GW is planning for their next batch of releases after Dark Angels and Drukhari? Let us know in the comments!
