2012 releases

[Darnok]

Moose has it, I think, in the post above, but I'll go further and fill in the remaining gaps.

June, flyers.
July, 6E.
August, WoC.
September, starter.
October, CSM.
November, Hobbit.
December, some kind of wave and deal bundles.
January, more Hobbit, I'd guess.
February, Dark Angels.

That's my guess anyway.

Pretty consistent with the recent rumours.

Personally, I'd swap CSM and WoC, but that's more a gut feeling than actual knowledge. And there are strong pointers towards Tau in "early 2013", which could very well mean a January/February release.

Edit: Indeed.

[RedemptionNL]

Didn't Harry point to Eldar being early 2013 as well?

Edit: and by skip you mean swap I assume?

[Spell_of_Destruction]

Didn't Harry point to Eldar being early 2013 as well?

Edit: and by skip you mean swap I assume?

The rumours all seem to point to Chaos first and then Tau, Eldar and Dark Angels in any order you like (although I doubt Eldar will be first out of those three).

[bobafett_h]

To my understanding the first movie is the entirety of The Hobbit while part 2 comes from the short stories and bridges the gap between LOTRs and the Hobbit, but I don't know if that's still accurate intel or not.

I'm pretty sure that the first part will end right as Bilbo emerges from the tunnels with the One Ring or at least soon after. There may even be another split personality scene with Gollum/Sméagol at the end like in The Two Towers for a bit of a tie-in. Part 2 is likely to cover things like Mirkwood, Smaug, the Battle of Five Armies, etc. so it is unlikely that a Smaug model will be released until next year in my opinion...

Despite the fact that the book of The Hobbit is a mere fraction compared to the length of the LOTR, there is still an awful lot of stuff that happens in it which would be too much for just one movie. Tolkien wrote that one more for children, so the descriptions are shorter and language is simpler compared to Lord of the Rings. But it is still certainly enough to fill 2 movies especially if bits and pieces here and there that are mentioned in the appendices are included...

[Archangelion]

June, flyers.
July, 6th ED.
August, CSM
September, 6th ED starter & WoC
October, DA
November, Hobbit.
December, Flyer of wave and deal bundles.
January, more Hobbit, I'd guess.
February, Tau.

I think it will probably be more like this. My reasoning? Why would they make the release directly after a core launch an army for the other system? If the starter is indeed CSM vs DA, it would make more sence for the DAs to be released nearly along side the starter, that way new players buy the starter, and can buy the armies with new codexes for the two featured forces. This also gives febuary to the Tau, which also coincides with the early 2013 rumour for them. Also, there is talk of a second wave of flyers this year, which points to that being in the december wave. I would also surmise that March and possibly January, we will see DA and CSM second waves. I know that this is a tighter schedual, but given 6th ED's release, I find it very hard to believe that they won't try to milk it as much as possible buy getting alot of new 40K toys for us to drool over.

[Tymell]

June, flyers.
July, 6th ED.
August, CSM
September, 6th ED starter & WoC
October, DA
November, Hobbit.
December, Flyer of wave and deal bundles.
January, more Hobbit, I'd guess.
February, Tau.

I think it will probably be more like this. My reasoning? Why would they make the release directly after a core launch an army for the other system?

Actually, looking at the last two new editions that's much what happened:

July 2010: 8th edition Fantasy. Next army book/codex? Dark Eldar in November.
July 2008: 5th edition 40K. Next army book/codex? Dark Elves in August.

If I had to hazard a guess as to their logic (very dangerous business I know ) I'd say most people will have a fairly set budget for what they spend. Piling tons of releases into a small timeframe won't necessarily generate more income because people will already have bought their 40K stuff in the form of the new edition of the game. Better to save new codexes a little, so as to pick up interest again when it's starting to slack (the same kind of reason why not much tends to get released in December: you've already got purchases for Christmas, so may as well save the money-makers for another time).

[Gingerwerewolf]

I still dont understand the Logic of releasing fliers before 6th edition. It makes no sense rules wise, no sense financially or stock wise.

Rumours aside I cant see why they would do it. Can someone try to explain the logic of why Summer of Fliers is next month?

[Romanus]

June, flyers.
July, 6th ED.
August, CSM
September, 6th ED starter & WoC
October, DA
November, Hobbit.
December, Flyer of wave and deal bundles.
January, more Hobbit, I'd guess.
February, Tau.

That bit is wrong

Cheers,
Rom

[Scammel]

Are you confirming CSM for August then, Rom? Cheers if you are!

[RedemptionNL]

Cheers Romanus. Any hint towards what (you think) does fill in the blank spaces?

[Fable]

Didn't Harry point to Eldar being early 2013 as well?

The last firm rumor we had on Eldar was that there would be at least three codicexes out between now and when that codex is released. That's why I'm so surprised these two rumored flyer waves seems to have something for every race except Chaos and Eldar (who will have to wait for their dexes) if the Eldar dex is a year and a half or further out and something like say the Tau dex is to be the second dex of the new edition.

It really creates an environment where one of their original races from their flagship game completely falls to ruin. At that point the Eldar aren't just a codex release, they're pretty much a rebranding and total relaunch from the ground up because not only will they have 7-8 years with a stagnant dex, they'll be the only force without access to one of the major draws of the new edition.

[ajefferism]

Another couple of things, I think the hobbit for november is dubious... From what i've heard the film is slated for around the 12th December onwards, depending on country. That said GW don't tend to do big December releases, so maybe they're trying to go early, though firstly i'd be surprised if New Line would let them, and secondly a christmas puch on the hobbit would work for them. I suspect January as an option.

I agree with this. After all the hoops GW is jumping through to please New Line Cinema's need for secrecy, why would they release The Hobbit stuff BEFORE the movie releases, it doesn't make sense. I can't see how The Hobbit releases any earlier than January (or day for day with the movie release in the middle of December)...

[Theocracity]

I agree with this. After all the hoops GW is jumping through to please New Line Cinema's need for secrecy, why would they release The Hobbit stuff BEFORE the movie releases, it doesn't make sense. I can't see how The Hobbit releases any earlier than January (or day for day with the movie release in the middle of December)...

Movies are judged by their opening weekend. If you do a lousy job marketing a movie you end up with an opening weekend flop (see John Carter for a recent example). GW's miniature line is part of the marketing push for The Hobbit. Thus it makes sense to come out before the movie along with the rest of the marketing push, not after when the opening weekend of the movie is over. You only need to keep things a secret for so long.

[ajefferism]

Movies are judged by their opening weekend. If you do a lousy job marketing a movie you end up with an opening weekend flop (see John Carter for a recent example). GW's miniature line is part of the marketing push for The Hobbit. Thus it makes sense to come out before the movie along with the rest of the marketing push, not after when the opening weekend of the movie is over. You only need to keep things a secret for so long.

So you think GW marketing their little figures is really gonna be more than a drop in the proverbial 30 gallon marketing bucket and that it will be worth it to New Line Cinema to ruin possible secrets and spoilers so GW can release their figures a month early? I think not.

The fact that GW gameplayers make up less than .00000000001 (or something like that) of the worlds population, I don't believe New Line would go for it... sorry. We're not a big enough (or influential enough) section of the market.

I COULD see GW making a special exception and release their stuff day for date with the movie release however... it will be a big deal to THEM, enough of a big deal to have a major release in December, which they dont normally do.

[Darnok]

Please move the Hobbit discussion to a thread of its own.


Darnok [=I=]

[drbored]

You're not making DA people angry beacuse your predictions are based on nothing. The WD DA dex is not going to happen. I am 100% sure that it will be a normal one. Too many fans out there (perhaps as many as BA and SW). I think as many here that it will be released around the begining of 2013.

Do you really think that GW is right now psyching up all DA fans with revealing the image of dark green robed marine with each issue of WD just to end up with the WD dex ? Not likely.

I love it when people use absolutes like '100%' even though there's no actual physical data to support any 100% certainty.

Let's begin with the assumption that we cannot predict Games Workshop's habits or plans. This is a safe assumption to make. Even rumormongers that are 'in the know' get things wrong sometimes, even if it's simply about a time slot. That said, we cannot predict with 100% certainty that Games Workshop will act one way or another (Making DA a WD Codex or not). My theory is based entirely around the White Dwarf spines.

We can safely assume the following..
1. The White Dwarf image will be complete by December's White Dwarf, creating a 12-spine chain.
2. The image is of a Dark Angels Space Marine
3. The advertisement is ramping up to SOMETHING.

What will that be? Why put an image in that won't be complete until December? They could release a Dark Angels-related product before then, but then why bother making it a 12-month spread? Either:
1. The image is heralding the arrival of a Dark Angels Codex late in the year (potentially as late as December).
2. The image is heralding the arrival of a White Dwarf Codex, with the last two issues completing the image and containing the Codex.
3. The image is heralding the arrival of the Dark Angels vs. Chaos Starter Set, with the Dark Angels Codex announcement being in the December White Dwarf, slating the Dark Angels Codex for January 2013.
4. The image means nothing, and White Dwarf just figured they'd do something that would help them sell full-year subscriptions for people that wanted to complete the image. Let's face it, I'm sure White Dwarf has sold a couple extra copies because of this.

That said, my money is on a White Dwarf Codex. Dark Angels, I've seen, are not that popular of an army. Nobody at my FLGS has expressed any interest in playing them, and some have even expressed a complete aversion to the idea of Dark Angels getting a separate Codex. I've heard quite a few opinions, some even saying that Dark Angels and Black Templar should just get absorbed into the vanilla Space Marine Codex to reduce the amount of time that Space Marines eat up out of GW's release schedule. This is all just opinion and conjecture.

Of course, I could be wrong and the next thing that makes the most sense is the White Dwarf announcing a Dark Angels release in January or February of 2013. It fits some of the other rumors, it makes sense, and it'll force people wanting to get the next juicy nugget to buy every White Dwarf, expecting that the next piece of the image will contain information about the release of the Dark Angels.

[Starchild]

@Fable: Regarding Craftworld Eldar being neglected, I'm not sure we have much to worry about. The new rulebook might swing things in their favour. I also think they will not need a complete overhaul in the same way Dark Eldar were. New models and army list? Of course, but Eldar are built on a solid conceptual base that has endured for two decades of the game.

If there is a WD DA codex, I expect it to be a get-me-by until a proper book can be introduced, just like they did for Blood Angels. With the starter set models and maybe the characters rereleased in finecast DA players would have everything they need for a while. I'm leaning more toward a codex early next year though.

[drbored]

If there is a WD DA codex, I expect it to be a get-me-by until a proper book can be introduced, just like they did for Blood Angels. With the starter set models and maybe the characters rereleased in finecast DA players would have everything they need for a while. I'm leaning more toward a codex early next year though.

I agree. Games Workshop doesn't really *like* to put down their products. Every one of their lines attracts a different demographic and a bunch of money. To White Dwarf a Codex would be a temporary fix to satisfy all the Power Armor Imperium gamers until the next Space Marine Codex comes out. Otherwise, I'm banking on a 2013 release date.

I'm pretty confident that the only Codices we'll see this year are going to be Chaos Marines and Warriors of Chaos, and little else.

[simonbeard]

Of course, I could be wrong and the next thing that makes the most sense is the White Dwarf announcing a Dark Angels release in January or February of 2013. It fits some of the other rumors, it makes sense, and it'll force people wanting to get the next juicy nugget to buy every White Dwarf, expecting that the next piece of the image will contain information about the release of the Dark Angels.

Can you point us to the rumors that fit this guess? I don't know that I've seen any DA codex release rumors other than guesses in the WD spine threads (which also included a DA/Chaos combined codex guess and new rules for Cypher and The Fallen guesses, and all sorts of other wild guesses - which may be right, but were mostly the good folks of the forums just responding and wishlisting when they realized there was a multipart image being revealed over the course of several months). I'm still not convinced that there is any rumor or any evidence concerning the nature of the image on the spines (other than "it probably won't stop halfway."). With 40K releasing in July, DA being in the starter box, and this year being the 25th anniversary for 40K, there just seem to be a lot of possibilities for a teaser campaign to promote. However, if you've seen DA release rumors, I'd love to know where they are, because I guess must have missed them.

[althathir]

The rumours all seem to point to Chaos first and then Tau, Eldar and Dark Angels in any order you like (although I doubt Eldar will be first out of those three).

Yeah, I doubt eldar will be first as well. I think it'll be chaos then tau, and da in the same quarter, with eldar having an october slot. I could also see tau & eldar back to back as well (not really going after the same demographic IMO), but I think the former is more likely though 2 xenos books in rule would actually be a bit of PR move on their part.

I still dont understand the Logic of releasing fliers before 6th edition. It makes no sense rules wise, no sense financially or stock wise.

Rumours aside I cant see why they would do it. Can someone try to explain the logic of why Summer of Fliers is next month?

It makes a lot of sense. Most people aren't looking up rumours or mistrust the ones we have now, so a splash release with something new is the heads up that a new edition is coming for the casual fan (GWs target). Its more advertising than anything.