Originally Posted by mattdc
with credit to WhisperofTruth, found this in Dakkadakka
Posting this has been long overdue, but I've never been one to actively partake in forum discussion due to time constraints more than anything. That being said I have a little information on 9th edition, information that will probably create more questions than it actually answers, but info which I hope can address some of the rumours about 9th itself.
One of the scariest rumours about 9th is undoubted that the mini ranges we know and love will be squatted, and this is correct, to an extent. The ranges will be getting completely revamped, some units will disappear into nothingness, new units will arise in wake of their fall and a select few may just survive the End Times. The essence of these lost unit, and the essence of warhammer itself will be kept alive in these new ranges however, you'll be able to see recognisable units from Oldhammer in Newhammer. One of the key driving motivators behind reducing the range is the cost of carrying such vast ranges, Warhammer in it's current state is not selling well enough to justify the cost, so compressing the range into factions will bare similar styles in order to save shelf space and hence the game some much needed room to breathe was seen as the way forward. This will also help to reduce the redundancy of similar unit types in the same army. Lets take Orcs and Goblins for example; You have Squig Herds, Squig Hoppers and Bosses on even bigger squigs all in one army. Three units all very similar in concept. Wouldn't it more sense from a business point of view to combine these three unit into one unit of let's say; Gobbos on Great Cave Squigs in order to remove redundancy and save shelf space? Absolutely and that's the sort of thing we'll be seeing in the future, a unit familiar in concept that combines several traditional ideas into one. In general though, the change to the ranges will take the opportunity to further entrench the IP, the units that survive the ET will be units that "define" their armies, things like common goblins will go the way of the squat. (Although will still be useable as I illustrate later.)
That being said, miniatures, and armies in general, will be taking forth new aesthetic styles due to the emergence of combined factions. New units for these factions will combine the look of all the current armies that make up that faction, and mood it into one new defining aesthetic that wouldn't look completely out of place in Oldhammer, yet still easily definable as something new. For a few of the future factions, we've already begun to see the emergence of this new look into the ranges in recent releases. With this change, you can also expect a evolution on the way Warhammer units look. The game will shift towards smaller elite types more in style with units like the Putrid Blightkings. From what I understood new models of say; Chaos Warriors and Black Orcs for example would become larger on an individual sense, but smaller as a unit where you might have only 5 models in the unit. This allows you too buy of box of say 20 goblins and still have that box represent a horde.
As armies go, your models will still be available in some form, just not the form you now recognise. There's no reason you can't use your old Human models to represent the new Human models in game. As for rebasing your models, will you have to rebase them? Well as I understood it, yes and no. From what I gathered the game was moving to a skirmish game format with options for models to rank up in slot-trays, so technically if you always kept your models in appropriately sized movement trays you be able to play with your old square based models, you just wouldn't be able to skirmish them. The option to rank up or skirmish, always he's to make the game scalable, and as such more open to beginners.
I hope that answers a few questions for you all.
