Why GW's choice of army books makes sense

[Wildeybeast]

Or this thread could be called 'Why Brets and WE still have a long wait'.
So what follows is my theory of how GW have chosen whic harmies to update. If you think it is complete nonsense, please hear me out, then call me on it.

We all know that there are certain elements of 8th ed which are very useful and certain elements which suffer.
Useful - big units of infantry, monstrous infantry, monsters, cannons and magic (depending on how the winds blow for you).
Underpowered - cavalry, skirmishers, small elite units.

Now look at the armies which have been updated:
O&G - hordes, monsters
TK - hordes, monsters
OK - monstrous infantry, monsters
VC - hordes, magic
And with Empire rumoured to be next and likely to see big blocks of infantry backed up by warmachines, the trend continues of armies suited to the stronger elements of 8th ed. And so the likes of Brets and WE, who already suffer under 8th ed are likely to continue to do so, because how do you make them work in the current rules without completely altering their army dynamic and playstyle? In short, I think GW have picked the 'easy' armies, the ones they knew they could make work without radical alterations whilst the more dificult ones are left to languish. And if i am right, it begs the question - why come up with a ruleset that make some amies obselete when you have no idea how to fix said armies?

What does the community think? Is ther logic to GW's choice of army updates? What does this mean for the less able members of the warhammer world?

[eldargal]

I agree, though the next book is likely to be Dwarfs I think, Empire are just getting a splash release. Still warmachines and infantry blocks, just smaller infantry (teehee) blocks.

[Bigred]

The theory I have been told is that they are replacing the armies that used non-standard magic first, to bring outliers into line with the new 8th magic phase. I would expect Dwarfs to be on the "short list" if that theory is true.

[eldargal]

That makes sense, I also heard something about GW wanting to do Bretonnians and Wood Elves right but not being sure how to proceed. That may have been speculation though, I'm not sure.

[Wildeybeast]

It would make sense to do the unorthodox magic armies first. There is clearly some method to how they choose, working out what it is is the tricky part.

[joppo]

I am just trying to hold off building up some hammerers myself - fingers crossed for a bunch of new Dwarf plastic kits!

[thepager]

My friend was just complaining about how tedious and difficult it is to make a dwarf army list.

However, back on topic I think that is an interesting point of working on the "easy" books first as touch ups for 8th edition.

Does Warriors of Chaos fit in on that as well because they are rumoured for the end of the year?

[HaleysRedComet]

While it looks like there may be a pattern to the release of the 8th ed books, I would argue that they will most likely be pretty random over the long run. If they went with magic, Drarves would be done by now. If it was hordes, Skaven. I doubt that there is much forethought going into GW's release schedule here...but I could be wrong.

[kargie]

WoC should be out this year--they are the only army without magic cards at this point, and they had a semi-wave release when the daemons got theirs, so I'd count on them soon so all the cards can be out. (Wood Elves also lack cards, but the Storm of Magic spells strongly imply that they will be losing their specific lore--or at least that they didn't know what to do with them when it came out). I also believe that magic is currently the driving force behind their release schedule, and they'll return to "normal" soon.

[Kaiserdean]

I don't think Magic is necessarily the reason behind the releases... I think it's actually a bit more mundane; sales.

Personally, I think they're looking at the oldest lists and compare them with how many models they think they can sell. WEs and Brets have never really flown off the shelves at my LGS.