The Big Warhammer 40K Preview – A New Edition! [Videos Within]
May 23, 2020 by brennon
Games Workshop has a big new Warhammer 40,000 Preview coming today, details of which are included below. It seems like we could be seeing a new edition drop for the game according to some leaks from this morning.
Check Out The Preview Page Here
The times for the preview are listed above plus we've dropped the Twitch Stream into the news story above so you can check it out for yourself here.
A New Edition! Videos & Images Below
We are looking at a new edition of Warhammer 40,000 with a redone logo, tweaked rules, new mechanics and of course new models.
Shop Warhammer 40K @ Store.OnTableTop
We've get a look at their plans to cover over all of the content that already exists for the game but with new Codexes and more coming to support the game going forward.
The two new Starter Armies for both the Space Marines and Necrons also look to have leaked out two over the weekend.
The bit that really excites me is the idea of them doing a more narratively focused mode which follows an evolving storyline in Warhammer 40,000.
What do you think of the news and will you be tuning in?
…a new edition of Warhammer 40,000 with a redone logo, tweaked rules, new mechanics and of course new models…and new higher prices 🙂
As with every edition – you don’t have to buy it. You can keep playing the edition you like, how you like with the models you like.
Yes, it’s an expensive hobby but the good thing is the range and scale of games and models.
Yes, it’s an expensive hobby, regardless of which game you play. Models, paints, and terrain all cost money and companies need to produce new content to keep going and evolve their games. I don’t think anybody has any issue with that. This is the fourth new edition of 40K since 2012 though. Fourth. That’s a new edition every 2 years, on average.This isn’t releasing new stuff to keep a game alive. It’s already the biggest game out there with no signs of slowing down. This is nothing more than a fleecing of the fanbase, yet again. And once again, GW… Read more »
If you’re not happy with the release schedule, don’t buy into it? Sorry – I genuinely don’t mean to be facetious. For other editions I’ve bought all the codices and supplements. For 8th I didn’t. I was deeply disgusted when Codex Chaos Daemons was reprinted identically in hardback from the paperback version, just for £15 more and didn’t buy the 7th Ed codex. If we were forced to pay it – like taxes – then their continual increase and cost should, rightly, be rejected but this is a hobby. The new rules will be free. There’s no reason to buy… Read more »
I wasn’t going to buy into it. I gave up on GWs predatory behaviour many years ago. GW use their size and market share to push their releases and editions at a rate that wouldn’t be acceptable for any other company (and I personally don’t think its acceptable for GW, to be clear). Compare to their competitors: Privateer Press released Warmachine in 2003. Mk II came in 2010. Mk III in 2016. 3 Editions in 11 years (17 years to date) Wyrd released Malifaux in 2009. They released M2E in 2013, And they released M3E last year. That’s three editions… Read more »
The last Edition I played was 3rd with metal Space Wolves…but sorry mate….your arguments are all pretty baseless. The core rules for the new edition are free! All old books will be still valid. You do not need to buy anything. But most importantly your comparison is completely off. ALL the systems you mention constantly change their rules. When they call it Shifting Loyalties, Third Offensive, Chapter Approved, or declare it a new Edition it makes no difference. All they do is compile changes in a book. That’s all it is regardless of how you call the book. It is… Read more »
Basic Rules (similar to D&D) will be free. I suspect you will have to buy a heap of books to get the full experience.
New editions are the way they push profits up, so if you think they will not design it to maximise purchases I suspect you are going to be disappointed.
The last edition of WH40K I played was the original Rogue Trader hardback book 🙂
What is a “full experience”? We have to make decisions about what we want to buy based on what we think we need/want/can afford etc. all the time. Where ist this different? If they had labeled the book “Chapter Approved 2020” and put those changes in there….what would have been the difference? Same decision to buy this book or not…and the next one…and the next one ect. Regarding the maximization…the whole “thing” is built for maximizing purchases. No news there 🙂
Completley agree – GW’s business model is based on a continuous stream of releases to keep people interested. They give us new models and rules and in return they get more money, and if you don’t like something you are under no obligation to purchase. I am not sure why this is such a controversial concept.
I will go back to comments i have made previously on the Catachan Colonel thread – moaning about what GW does seems to be a hobby in itself.
Being blunt, I would like to buy the latest mechanicus kits. Without being too personal, I can’t afford it. It’s £140 I don’t have that needs to be spent on the car/dog/junior. I choose not to buy. I am not being ‘fleeced’. They won’t get my money. That’s perfectly reasonable. As for saying they are inept – they’re the number 1 in the industry. If it’s a question of value – Privateer Press recently produced a 5 man pack of metals, two of which were duplicates so three sculpts for $85. I don’t reference them except as an example. In… Read more »
Brace yourselves for Age of Guilliman.
So we can expect the return of the Rainbow Warriors chapter?
Well if the leak is legit then the rules won’t be a huge departure from what we have now. I actually really like how 8th edition plays so it’ll be interesting to see how they tweak that to a point where it changes the meta but keeps all the current books usable.
I’m more interested in the narrative changes they said they’re going to make. 8th saw the biggest shift in the timeline we’d had in years.
according to the preview :
– current codexes still work (except points values and minor changes in stat lines)
– tweaked terrain rules
– blast weapons more effective (against mobs)
– crusade aka ‘campaign’ / ‘escalation’ as part of the core rules
– reserves may be a viable option for everyone
– more command points for everyone (I suspect cost of certain strategems will be reworked … )
Their Q&A reveals that the Crusades system will require new codexes :
https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/w3XH4n7yL3Ti1hW2.pdf
Soooo glad I stuck with the Age Of Darkness ruleset for Horus Heresy ?
LOL ‘An amazing new logo’ i think they summed that up as. At this point i’m continuing to listen to this in the background for the comedy value. I’ve a morbid fascination as to what the changes to the rules will be.
Primaris Necrons. Whoo!
so good.. those 3 legged elites and that 3 legged walker-machine-lord thing…. I don’t even play 40K and I want those.
I’m interested to see what they think needs changed. Or if it’s just to reinforcement the inclusion of the Primaris as a standard.
I’m pretty sure I’ll by a copy of this regardless. For god-sake I still have my ‘Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader’ from the late 80’s!
4 things appear to have changed :
– command points and the strategems they allow are going to have more impact on the game
– terrain having a bigger impact and more clearly defined rules by default (cover and concealment)
– reserves (were they ever a thing in 40k? I know there’s orbital drop troops or their equivalent in almost every faction)
– blast weapons more effective (against mobs)
Thanks for the info! ?
I started to watch the video on Twitch, but something came up and I had to stop watching. Haven’t had a chance to fire it back up again.
Looking forward to this immensely – definitley going to be picking up a copy.
Nice to see a bit of positivity for a change! Hope you enjoy it.
It will be interesting to see what the ‘crusades’ bit is all about.
However having to buy a new codex to gets its full effect does kind of suck.
TBH given the news on real and digital codexes, picking up a new codex what towards the top of my shopping list anyway. I am sure it will get transcribed over to battlescribe at some point anyway.
Absolutely buzzing with what they announced today! I love narrative gaming and campaign/experience systems so seeing those added back in is awesome. Really interested to see how cover gets redone as our main board is a pretty dense cityscape. My biggest questions are still with what they’ll be doing with the Imperial Armour Indexes though. Both myself and my brother (my usual opponent) use a lot of FW stuff across all our armies and the point costs are really extreme while many of the special rules are absent. As a big Black Library fan I’m happy too see a new… Read more »
New edition for 40k? That’s basicely every other monday, isn’t it?
Funny enough, the launch date for 8th edition was I believe mid July, 2017.. so it has been just over 1000 days since that edition… would have been super funny if they were doing a new edition every 1000 days to line up with the K in 40K… lol
or it was 34 months ago.. so if this take 6 months to launch (unlikely), it would be 40 months between 40Ks… so also totally an option.
the new video is fab and the new figures look great.
Great news, 8th is a big improvement but it always felt like they held back a little so not to disrupt things too much.
I am really hoping they’ve switch to alternate activation (or something similar). Combine that with the ability to play shorter games that they mention & upgraded terrain rules and I think this could be the change that makes the 40k ruleset top notch again.
I can’t see them switching to Alternate Activation any time soon. While it does work with smaller games if you were to play a large battle around 2.5k or 3k then you’d be pulling activation tokens out of a sack.
Yes, much more fun to stand around watching your opponent move and fire all their models, or maybe pop out and get lunch then come back.
I’ve played boardgames with heavy down time between turns and felt the frustration of waiting but with 40k, everything my opponent does affects me so I’m just as engaged on their turn as my own.
@jamesedwards the thought of ‘alternate activation’ makes me happy as that is how the last few games I’ve played have been done, (home rules), something along the lines of Bolt Action’s system.
But I’ll not hold my breath on that one. But it would really change things up!
Interesting to see that none of the comments has brought up one thing that I noticed whilst watching the vids….
The change(s) to TANKS. Might get a certain OTT staffer (or two) happy.
Yeah, this is about the amount of howling into the void I’d expect with a new GW release, but I’m glad there’s some positivity still to be found. (Can’t wait till slayer shows up and starts “debating” me again…) It sounds like this is a good idea, even though there are some downsides. Yes, we are going to have to buy new codexes again, which I’m not happy about, but rules balances and refinement are always welcome, and unlike other editions in the past, everything we currently have is still usable, it just won’t have some of the newer units.… Read more »
I have question for those who are still playing or are into 40K because it’s been a long while since I have been in 40K (from 7th edition I think) ever since they interred Black Templars in main sm codex and making my squads obsolete unless I overhaul them completely.
You only need the rule book and your codex?
But what are all those other books I see that get released like psychic awakening?
Do you need those as well and what do you get extra in these books?
The Psychic Awakening books are campaign books. Each one has rules for new units but while there’s nine books, if you only want the rules for your specific army then you you’ll only need to buy one of them.
I personally love campaign books for the fluff and new missions so I buy each one.
You don’t need then, but if you are into playing in a highly competative way you may find you want some of them as they have additional faction specific rules in them that will help you stay on top of the meta. Each book has a focus on 2 or 3 factions, so you only ever need the ones about the armies you care about.
Those two new army boxes both look good… except that I’m disappointed the marines are still on wheeled bikes. I was really hoping they’d be switched to jetbikes to match their new tanks. I just can’t get my head around driving a motorbike into a battle.
Probably because it looks good. I prefer the wheeled bikes over the jetbikes (aka Eldar nonsense) but I get what you mean about it being a bit jarring next to the grav tanks. Before I saw these I would have thought that all Primaris vehicles were going grav.
*yawns* same old same old… wake me when they do some new (good looking) Orcs… and orc vehicles!
New necron models a nice, not nice enough to replace current versions but nice – new walkers are interesting. However, I won’t be picking up the edition. None of the announced changes address my issues with current rules and I think it needs a complete rework for me to be interest. So new shiny robots aren’t a priority on the shopping list.
Hope for those excited for this it delivers what you are looking for
Interesting. I am spoilt for amazing minis being an Infinity convert so another revamped Space Marine or Necron doesn’t entice me back to 40K but I am sure fans will love new mini options, if not new rules 🙂