how often does GW make editions? is it like once every 2 years or something?

It's more along the lines of every four to six years. 6th edition I'm pretty sure was around for six years, but mostly its four years.

Wow you are right, 6th was out for 6 years. I didn't think it was that long. They seem to be speeding up the production of new editions IMO, especially with 40k. But 4 year or so is a reasonable estimate.

The longer the better in my opinion. GW already makes a nice profit from the products that they release. The faster they release them, the faster the gaming world is expected to turn over their stock of models. At least models don't drastically change from edition to edition (IE 6th Ed Sarus can't be used for 7th Ed Sarus).

I'm sure that GW's increased production speed is driven in part by their waning profit margins. Hopefully they can keep the quality of their work up to par.

Yeah they have to keep churning out new things or interest dies off, their main gaming base has already bought everything they can, and that is that. Warhammer is not really a consumable, like food you must keep buying. When you buy a model once, it doesn't decompose, so to keep the business going they must make a new version of it, a new version of the army books etc. It is why the rules will never be 'perfect' and balanced. If they do that, there will be nothing to improve on in another edition. The rules are just there to sell their miniatures.

presumably also explains why the armies keep on getting more and more new units.

though in that case, wouldn't it make sense to keep making more new armies? or at least give the poor old chaos dwarves/dogs of war a book!

tbh nothing major has changed since 6th Ed, i find it suprising all the rumours for 8th Ed seem to point to major changes... guess we'll have to wait and see. though by most counts we shouldnt have to wait long, as it's meant to be out this year.

i quite doubt they can make all army books balanced even if they tried. also i don't see a problem with it, if they manage to do it they can just make new army books and keep selling. they get more money out of the new gamers than out of the veterans anyway. a veteran will only buy so many models in a period of time, while somebody relatively new to the hobby will buy a lot more to get a functional army. and then probably a new one.

There is a side effect of having older dedicated gamers though. And it is that these players populate the shops and help get new players into the hobby. Right now the warhammer club in my area is encouraging new players, making sample armies avaliable for folks to try it out and offering nice terrain to play on.

They certainly haven't made every model yet. There are the space wolf calvary, the varrious tryanids,or the terrifying Skaven abombination to name a few. For modeling quallity I still things are on the rise. The plastic stegs are great! The very recent plastic Trigon is also beautiful.

Regarding books, yes the new editions are there to make a profit. This is completly normal in the industry though. Fourth edition D&D was released for the same reason, and if you want a truely cash guzzling example look at college text books.

I honestly beleive that the designers of warhammer enjoy the game. Perhaps not their bosses but the people who write the codex's and make the models, or write white dwarf are just as into this (if not more so) than we are.

If GW isn't viable as a business our hobby isn't like to hang around long. Many folks decried the purchase of the D&D franchise by Wizards of the Coast (who I think is Hasbro) but the franchise has never been stronger.

QFT there!

pretty much agree with that you said there. i really think that the people at GW love the game as we do, and if anything, hate having to try and balance the books.

Of course. But since it takes a rediculous amount of time, effort and money to make an entire new army, it is usually better to just remake the armies they already have and that are already popular. Plus you never know if a new army will actually sell well or not. Look at Ogres for example, they were a new army and not very popular. Chaos Dwarfs and Wood Elves had very small supporter bases and low sales, so CD are basically dead and it took WE around 10 years for an update. The poor old Dark Eldar of 40k last got a book in 1998 back in 3rd edition. On the other hand, Space Marines account for over 50% of all GW sales (yes, ALL sales not just 40k) thus they get new releases every few months.

Big changes are indeed forecast for 8th ed, but GW has also said that every 7th (and in some cases, 6th) edition army book will still be fully compatible with the new edition, so surely any changes can't be too significant. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

Again, I will not pay 80-90$ for a rulebook, so if the rumours of cool HE's in the next starter box is true I will get that and have the rules, otherwise... Well, I'll get them elsewhere.