GW Studio Open Day Rundown:

[Bigred]

About 75% of what was said was the standard flowery marketing speech, papering over a simple desire for profit (which is fine), but they did let slip some nuggets that I put into the top summary.

Overall, they didn't say that much.

[jonsgot]

If 6th ed was finished 6 months ago, I think that conclusively proves that the 'leaked' rule set was fanmade one and not a work in progress (in case anyone still had any doubts).

A fan named Alessio Cavorte?

[jonsgot]

Think of this from a financial standpoint. Releasing an army say, every 3 months means you'll sell more. Whereas I can certainly afford an expansion book every month, or something to add to my current armies, I can only realistically justify the cost of a new army periodically. Yet that doesn't stop me getting 'shinynew syndrome' every month.

And to be honest, I do question just how many armies are in urgent need of an update. Tau, Dark Angels, Eldar and Chaos spring to mind, follow by Tryanids. The rest strike me as much of a muchness

That would explain why there are only pictures of a few codex's in the new rule book. I think it's 4 or 5 where as 5th had most of them.

[Lerra]

And to be honest, I do question just how many armies are in urgent need of an update.

Don't forget Black Templar either. I'd only call the top 6 or so of these armies "update urgently needed" but the others are due for an update anyway.

1. Sisters
2. Eldar
3. Chaos Space Marines
4. Chaos Daemons
5. Black Templar
6. Tau
7. Dark Angels
8. Codex: Space Marines (they don't need it per se, but as the flagship codex they're due for an update)
9. Tyranids

At a codex every 3 months, that's still over 2 years to get these armies all updated. I'm hoping GW doesn't take too much longer than 3 months per codex.

[Defenestratus]

A fan named Alessio Cavorte?

I guess the secrets out then.

Given the comments by Phil... There still seems to be some tension going on there.

[jonsgot]

I guess the secrets out then.

Given the comments by Phil... There still seems to be some tension going on there.

I think the tension would be with Jarvis - He's the Gibs of GWS - out lived all the directors and other writers. He's also not shy about his view 40k is for fun not competitiveness.

[the jeske]

ask the DA or chaos players how fun 5th ed was .

[Man in Black]

ask the DA or chaos players how fun 5th ed was .

And I have Chaos Marines, Dark Angels and Black Templars. Chaos wasn't all that bad, but still preferred the 3.5 Codex.

[Kaiserdean]

I thought that was an interesting reply. It's not terribly insightful but it does give some reasoning behind the GW thought process.

A lot of gamers seem to be complaining about old codexes but I think a lot of people underestimate how much production goes into an army release and how much time it can take to develop. Even when a new codex comes out, a lot of players flame the book and wish the designers spent more time on it... I guess it's a no-win situation.

Of course, most of these decisions are made to sell more product and get consumers to purchase more. GW is a business...

[Wildeybeast]

In terms of the pay off for the producer, I'm guessing you also have to balance it out with how popular a given army is and what sort of return one might expect.

That's true to some extent, but DE showed that you can take an unpopular and badly neglected army, give it a really good make over and turn it into one of your best selling ranges. The same could be done with any of the others, it just takes some TLC. I agree that non of the armies are unplayable, with even Tau becoming more competitive, but some still need an update, both in terms of models and a new codex. The longer you leave an army with the same old models, the more sales of that army will decline, so there is good sense in updating your oldest ranges first. SM will always sell well regardless of often they are updated, but you could get a big sales increase from some of the less popular ranges with a good overhaul.