They're beginning the process of rolling out 40k 8th Edition. Their lead in was a new website, a quick keep calm FAQ, and declaration of war on 7th edition. We don't know much, but we do know all current rule books will be invalidated.
So......
This
This
This
This*
*Coolest book I've ever owned
And This (My Book Shelf will be happy)
Will be strictly reading material.
What does this mean for the game?
Games-workshop is doing a fresh start, they are starting a new edition and they don't want the ghosts of Christmas past to be a drag. This is very similar to what fantasy went through.
Why I'm not worried?
GW learned a lot from the Fantasy change. Its sad that fantasy had to be a beta test for something like this, but it seems to have recovered very well.
And as a result GW learned what their customers were willing to put up with and how long it takes to respond.
Why I'm not mad?
I have a lot of 7th Edition books. And the one thing I've hated more then anything is that they were not created equal. Grey Knights and Dark Eldar ended up being trimmed down 6th edition books, Craftworld got super charged by 7th, Harliquins became a stand alone weird thing, and Tyranids..... well...... they were present......
And oddly enough this wasn't a new thing. Every edition has been like this, there are always weird inconsistencies in army play-ability when your rules are spread across half a decade of releases. Things don't change properly, new things get real shiny, and then the last of the things end up pulling their punches because we all learned better.
8th edition is looking to do the one thing I've always wanted to happen, change the core of everything at once. From what they are saying it looks like core rules, AND codexs, are being completely replaced with 8th edition versions.
How much of 7th is staying in there we don't know yet. But I think it will be more of it than not. GW asked us what was wrong, and then spent a lot of time doing reviews of all the current codexs. They now have a huge database of what things we want to change, and more importantly how bad we are at reading.
6th almost did this, but it changed the core without changing the arms. 8th is looking to be far more comprehensive. The logic is looking like the core/army rules change immediately, and future supplements will build off both.
So, right now I'm super psyched. How the rules actually changed may make me sad, but the concept which they've told us is all I ever wanted.
One last Family Picture Time
One more thing
The last thing to go over is that they're being super open about everything they are doing. And they will be keeping us up to date in the coming weeks before the switch gets flipped. An incredible change of pace from previous edition changes for any of their systems.
Stay Tuned and Hold on to Your Butts.......
