Hi guys. Today I’m talking about 9th edition — and why it probably won’t be hugely different to 8th.
People like just the right combination of novelty and familiarity. As much as I would like to take credit for such a wise statement, I can’t. That must go to the excellent Tom Scott.
In his latest video, Scott discusses why you can’t name a file ‘Con’ on a Windows operating system. Like most of Scott’s work, it’s a great video, full of interesting techy tidbits. If you’ve not seen any of his stuff, I’d highly recommend it.
But why is this relevant to the 9th edition of 40k? In addition to the top notch computer nerdery, Scott discusses how most people feel about change. Indeed, people like novelty and familiarity in just the right balance.
I think that this is a useful way to think about 9th edition — or the potential of 9th edition. Game systems need to change, but they shouldn’t change too much, and at the moment with 8th edition we’re at the point where some change is needed, just not too much.
Overall, 8th edition is a great game. Like any game, it’s imperfect, but 8th gets most things right. And what’s more, we’re right in the middle of some great updates to the game in which each faction gets something new. Granted, not all faction updates are equal, but this way is far better than some factions missing out.
But these updates present problems. The game used to be streamlined, lightweight, and easy to jump in to, but it’s not anymore. 8th edition, like most game systems after a few years of updates, is bloated.
And when game systems become as bloated as 8th edition, the usual response is an update.
As a T’au player, I’m relatively fortunate. To play a game, I need a copy of the rulebook, the T’au codex, and The Greater Good supplement. To make things easier, I usually don’t bring a physical copy of the main rulebook when I go to play. My opponents are almost always well familiar with the core rules, so I find that a digital copy on my phone works fine. That said, if I were going to a competitive tournament, I would want hard copies of all of my rules. But all things considered, two or three books isn’t so bad.
But if we consider the game’s flagship army, we find a different story. It wouldn’t be uncommon for a Space Marine player to need four or five different books to play. Of course, this would depend on the Chapter in question, but most Marine players will need a good few books.
But we’re not just talking about books. GW has released dozens of FAQ and errata documents for both the main rules and army-specific rules. Indeed, keeping track of the latest update can be tricky. And what’s more, tournament organizers might not be familiar with the latest ruling from GW. And while organizers should do their best to be up to date, there is a lot of content out there, and it’s perfectly understandable that a busy tournament official misses something.
The average player, then, might need to bring four or five physical books and a further three or four update documents to an event, and we can’t guarantee that everyone is going to be up to date.
Needless to say, this can’t go on for too much longer.
But I would argue that it’s not necessarily the edition bloat that will herald a new edition. Put simply, I think we’re due one.
GW released 8th edition 40k in June 2017. We’re a couple of months away from 8th edition’s third birthday.
And the average time between editions — not counting 2nd edition and Rogue Trader — is a little over three years. That 8th edition is coming up on the average edition length doesn’t necessarily mean that a new one is in development, but I’d say that it makes it much more likely. GW knows that it needs to continue to build on past success, to continue to drive the creative process forward. If a business isn’t growing, it’s in trouble.
But I don’t think that 9th edition will be particularly different from 8th. Like Scott said, novelty and familiarity. The Psychic Awakening series brought lots of new content into the game, and it would be unwise for GW to invalidate their work on this series with big, sweeping changes.
When 9th arrives, I think we’ll see relatively small tweaks to what is already a great game system.
But how would this deal with the problem of bloat? It wouldn’t — unless GW look to a digital release model to coincide with a new edition. I think this would be a fantastic move.
There is a lot of scope for GW to build a digital model, and there are plenty of different ways to do it. When I discuss this issue with my gaming group, one theme always emerges: a subscription service that gives players access to all releases, fully up to date.
There’s a lot to go into there, and that’s a topic for another time, but I want to briefly mention how this would affect new players. Indeed, I’d say that it’s the issue of new players — the lifeblood of the hobby — that would stop GW from going all-in on a digital model. I would well imagine that it’s much easier to generate interest in the hobby with physical, hard copy books. While it’s by no means impossible to do so with digital content, it’s much more difficult.
There are a number of reasons for this. The hobby is, at its core, tangible. 40k isn’t a video game. It’s a game in which two individuals must move three dimensional objects around a three dimensional setting. Most 40k players will distinctly remember the first model that they ever picked up. It was probably a Space Marine. Mine was the Space Marine bike, a sculpt that still exists.
We won’t see the end of the physical codex, at least not for a good while yet. But I think we could be pretty close to a all-digital model for serious players of the game.
However, what I’ve written above presumes that we’re living in normal times. And of course, for the moment, we’re not. Before the lock-down, GW was in excellent financial health, and it would be reasonable to assume that the development team were working on a new edition. But now, it’s anyone’s guess. While development on new products will probably continue, the likelihood of GW actually releasing a product as important as a new edition of their flagship game is unlikely.
But this prompts another question: how long can GW hold off on planned releases? It’s a question that most businesses are dealing with at the moment, and it’s certainly out of the scope of this article. In response to current circumstances, we’ve put the global economy on life support, and it’ll take time to return to the where we were only a couple of months ago. Here’s hoping it takes months and not years.
When it happens, then, I think we’ll be looking at a new edition — that is slightly different but not completely so.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
total lack of evidence ??
Yes we carry multiple books, but that an OPTION we take. Personally that’s an annotated Codex, Supplement (for two pages of stratagems, I also have on cards) and Vigilus (for one stratagem, on one page if I take Centurion Devastators). If I could just take the cards I’d save a bit of luggage, but that’s an option few TOs allow. Many are taking the e-book versions anyway. There is nothing in PA I want to use regularly. BUT that’s only for competitive players – the vast majority of players aren’t involved in the competitive scene.
Financially it would be suicide to try to relaunch a new edition during a Pandemic and global lockdown. GW are struggling to stay afloat with e-books and limited models to be collected in months time.
Players are more interested in refreshing declining paint pot stores et al. Many have lost their jobs.
Instead I can see further cards coming out with the allowable stratagems on. And rules to allow striped down books to be used.
Next week, the new plastic Thunderhawk and how PA made 2-wound Berzerkers 😉
“Overall, 8th edition is a great game. Like any game, it’s imperfect, but 8th gets most things right.”
Citation needed.
Quote:
“The Psychic Awakening series brought lots of new content into the game, and it would be unwise for GW to invalidate their work on this series with big, sweeping changes.”
Ummm yeah, let’s not forget the ‘end times’ & WHFB. The argument that the game was too expensive is easily applied to 40k, that it was dead was instantly invalidated by the boom in Kings of War players, and as an apparent (if unadmitted) acknowledgement of the mistake of killing WHFB, a reboot is apparently in the works.
So whilst you raise several good points, your crystal ball is no clearer than anyone else’s.
I have paid quite a bit of money for my Space Marine books, only to have my Imperial Fists take the worst Nerf among all Space Marines. And then for the books to be erased by 9th ed because buying books is too complicated, because there are so many books. Books books did you buy more books? Oh more books is bad now your books are invalid. This pattern sucks
Completely agree with all of the above comments, I personally have spent thousands of pounds over the last few years as I love all aspects of the hobby. I loved 8th when it came out but now finding the constant changes really annoying.
GW financial model of course is based on high profit, but I believe is becoming a mickey take to the customers. The constant cost of paying because of changes is grating on me. In the 4 years I’ve been playing the game this will be the 3rd edition change. That’s 6 codex books I have had to buy for each change, plus now the physic awakening which yes are exciting but to release saga of the beast which was already outdated before it was released is really not on and says to me we don’t give two hoots just scribble it out and replace this sentence….. I can’t help but see a pattern of we need to sell lots of these let’s change the rules make them really good then change them back once they have sold and so on.
I have in addition found that some players can’t keep up with the changes and it puts them off playing the hobby because they can’t remember everything. My father plays games that are of the Wellington period around Waterloo and the rules have not changed in 30 + years. I for one will not be paying for a monthly subscription for digital content because they can’t get it right, sorry.
LOL worst nerf. Okay…/rolls eyes.
The Dark Angels book was essentially a copy and paste from 7th edition with 2 added pages.
All GW has to do is release new codexes that include/combine all the material you meed for that army. Anything else just seems silly considering the game has never been more popular.
Now is the best time for GW to switch to a digital format with a living ruleset. It’s really hard to get physical books into the hands of players right now, but very easy to get electronic books into their hands. Plus, a subscription based service right now would be HEAVENLY as a consistent revenue stream. Such a service would give you access to all the rules, and auto-updates as it goes, so you wouldn’t need to hunt things down. Pay $5.00/month. If 1 million players subscribe, that’s $5 million every month, release or no release, update or no update, stores open or stores closed.
The issue is never the core rule set, it’s the breaking of the core rules that GW does with every codex/model release! They know the masses will eat it up, it drives sales, but it’s f’d up for everyone but those that play competitive and are willing to spend on the latest hot-sht. Add the freight train release that came at us since 7th e and it’s a train wreck. Real cover rules that are official would be a nice thing to see again, but it’s the codex books once again where the mess happens.
Why GW doesn’t have a dndbeyond.com equivalent is just crazy to me. Continue to produce and sell books, like WoTC does with 5e, but also sell them in an easily USEABLE and referenceable online DB format (ie. Not ePub or some other random eBook format.)
Create a digital, BattleScribe-like, list building tool that uses whatever digital rules/books you have purchased on your “WH40KBeyond.com” account. You could even plug-in your model collection with the wargear you have, etc. to quickly build out lists.
Then just update the rules on a regular schedule. Maybe minor updates once a month, major updates once a quarter. The important thing is that it’s on a regular schedule so TO’s can plan/schedule around it. The list builder could even have a basic version control system if people needed to build lists on “last month’s update”, though not 100% necessary.
Release “Unearthed Arcana” style beta rules that people can opt-in to, test, and provide feedback before they GA.t
8th edition is the worst edition in my opinion. From what I understand it’s an ITC tournament players preferred edition. But I think tailoring the game for tournament players has left us with a flavorless set of rules riddled with bad game mechanics. In short, it’s not immersive and not as fun as previous editions.
What 9th edition needs.
1. Bring back vehicle rules with facings and weapon fire arcs. Its simple. +1 armor to front facing. -1 toughness to rear. Add critical hit table instead of degrading profiles.
2. Close combat should be WS vs. WS and in order of initiative. +1 to your initiative if you are the charging unit.
3. Morale needs to be addressed. Right now it strongly favors small units. Bring back falling back units and rallying. A staple of all wargames.
4. Terrain and cover needs to be better. More terrain rules. Cover saves like in previous editions. Not +1 to armor. That makes no sense.
5. Indirect fire needs to be addressed. Since we got rid if templates its become to strong. There should be some kind of scatter rules.
6. Reserves should be rolled for. There should be seep strike scatter and mishaps again. Some kind of risk is needed so that they aren’t auto includes. No risk reserves and deep strike seriously favors certain factions (Raven guard I’m looking at you)
Do the above and maybe this game will be fun again.
It’s not the ITC tourn,ament prefered edition either. They may disagree on your list of solution (heck, I don’t think there is a consensus in ITC for more than “things need to change), but really the edition is not designed to anyone. At that point, it’s more like an heap of random development.
I also forgot something. They need to tone down Auras. Since there is no more templates and Aura buffs are so all important for the bazillion rerolls this game doesn’t even look like a modern warfare game. How often do we see large clumps of troops clustered around officers and medics? It looks like a fantasy battle game. Heck they even sell movement trays now! It’s awful. A bunch of us have started playing 2nd ed and revised 7th because we don’t find 8th at all enjoyable.
Has anyone attempted to create an “open source” version of the game?
I’ve been playing 40k since 3rd edition, and I would say that 8th is one of the best editions of the game since then. They have simplified a lot of the rules and the game is quite easy to pick up.
For me, getting rid of vehicle facings and scattering is one of the best changes since allowing pre-measuring. These aspects caused the most arguments in games.
Maybe true for the initial release.
But the current state of the 8th edition is one extremely hard to pick up, and easily confusing. That’s due to rule overload – in the end, it started as the lightest edition and end up as the most verbose.
I would still say it is pretty easy to pick up. Yes, there are a lot of rules and books, but much of that has to do with army building and giving you more choices.
How often do you actually have to look up the rules during a standard game? Most of the time it is rarely, to check the wording of a stratagem or power.
That seem pretty often to me, especially when checking the interaction between stratagem or if my opponent can actually use that stratagem.
3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th all had more complicated rules at the end of their life cycles than 8th does right now, and the contest isn’t even close.
Each of us has had different experiences of course.
I’ve personally had to deal with a lot of frustrated new players who can’t seem to understand why the rules in the book they just purchased are not valid. And why they need to download erratas, FAQs, buy chapter approved, psychic awakenings and white dwarfs in order to play their army correctly.
Also the proper use of stratagems has caused just as many arguments if not more then vehicle facings or fire arcs ever did. Most people cant keep track of when they need to play them in the turn or phase or get frustrated by “gotcha” moments when their well laid plans get foiled by one.
I for one can’t deal with another edition that doesn’t include proper vehicle rules. A Gretchen walking up to a Leman Russ touching it and preventing a turn of shooting is just bad game mechanics. Also, a vehicle can now be modeled as a square box with weapons stuck on any which way because placement and turrets no longer matter (see Repulsor).
If they don’t include vehicle rules and fix close combat, morale, terrain and auras at least I’m afraid they have lost me as a customer. This is not the game I asked for or wanted.
I am still fairly new to the game, even after 2-3 years, as I’t have a Lot of actual playing time. But looking in mostly from a newbie or outsider’s standpoint, I find many things with the current state of affairs frustrating.
Regarding the manuals, I find it ludicrous that tournament officials often do not allow digital copies. Digital copies have the potential to be updated in real time, and should provide the most up to date rules. Likewise, I do not understand why cards would not suffice as long as they are the latest version? The situation reminds me of the “soup nazi” from Seinfeld. Too many people in this hobby seem to take an ‘elitist’ attitude, putting up barriers to people becoming long term players. Don’t get me wrong, players are quick to encourage people check out the hobby and encourage them to play. But too many potential players quickly bail out after their initial enthusiasm, after being exposed to some toxic players or tournament officials that wind up being way too ‘anal’ about things and ruining the potential enjoyment from just playing the game, or sticking to the ‘spirit or intent’ of the game, and remembering that its a game, and supposed to be fun, instead of dwelling on technicalities. I have talked to many players that will only play casually, because they do not want the headaches and hassles that tournament play brings, and simply put, they say that they aren’t fun after dealing with those issues.
For that matter, Games Workshop seems to play just as much a roll in this climate. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a games Workshop ‘hater’. I think that they do a lot of things wonderfully. Their new sculpts are incredible. Their miniatures are great quality. But as a whole, their internal culture seems to be diseased, And while they are currently in good financial shape, I question whether they can sustain their current successes while maintaining their current ethos. Because their current emphasis seems to be strictly about capturing as much revenues as possible – a “make it while you can” mentality, opposed to looking at creating and maintaining a lasting business and hobby. GW seems to be more concerned about lining their pockets than filling the ranks of the faithful. I would tenure that as the lifeblood of the hobby, they have a responsibility to do both, grow the ranks of the faithful, while also maintaining profitability to be able to sustain themselves well into the future. It is a balancing act. And currently, things are out of balance.
Cost is ultimately the most common and frequent complaint or objection that I hear when talking to others about the hobby, or why they don’t play. It seems that everything that GW does is designed to wring that extra dollar out of their customers. The cost of the miniatures is the most evident issue. from an outsider’s standpoint, $200 for a box of plastic miniatures is ridiculous. Myself, sort of straddling the fence between an outsiders and someone in the hobby, I can fully understand their perception. And as a hobbyist, I see most hobbyists somewhat numb or just accepting of the absurd costs of most of GW’s miniatures and models.
Don’t get me wrong, GW’s latest stuff is very nice. But $35 for a single character, or $60 for a squad of ten is honestly outrageous. i understand that there is a lot of work that goes into these new sculpts. But let’s be realistic too. As technology has increased, design, development and production costs should go down, resulting in lowers costs. Computer design and modeling should have reduced the costs of creating new miniatures, vehicles and terrain greatly. Yet, GW’s prices seem to continue to increase. Furthermore, it seems that some product has been produced in China recently, which I am sure was strictly as cost saving measure. A recent example of these excessive costs is the new Sister of Battle Rhino. Why is this model so expensive? Much of the model appears to be existing sprues? I have seen articles talking about GW’s pricing strategy based on the points values of the pieces. But the bottom line seems to be that they are greedy, choosing to cash in as much as possible now, while potentially defeating themselves in the long run?
Especially considering the changing nature of technology and hobbying, in general. 3D printing is now affordable and resin printers for home use can produce some amazing miniatures. There are companies out their now that simply sell the digital files for people to print their own miniatures. And countless others design and print their own terrain, etc. with their 3D printers at home. And it you aren’t up to designing stuff yourself, there are lots of sites that you can down load print files for free or a donation, as well as sites that you can purchase intricately detailed files. The awesome thing about these files is that once you have them, you can print unlimited copies.
Furthermore, if you look at other games out there like A Song of Ice & Fire or Bolt Action, you can get a unit of ASOIAF miniatures for around $30, and these are very good looking pieces, even if they are not customizable. On the other hand, you can get a box of 30-36 Bolt Action figures that can be customized for $40. Likewise, if you look at the vehicles, $45 for a rhino seems excessive when you look at some 1/35 scale Tamiya tank models that are bigger, and have many more pieces and more detail, for $30-40. Even some of their newer designed WW2 German tanks with some etched brass pieces and brass barrels, providing exquisite details, are only in the $40-50 range.
When you look at other games out their like Gaslands, etc., where players create their own miniatures for the game, it isn’t hard to envision WarHammer players eventually reaching a point where they rebel against GW’s ever increasing costs and look to ways to print their own armies, and not just terrain. For GW to ensure that they remain relevant well into the future, I feel that they should revamp their pricing model, lowering their prices on their models and miniatures, looking at selling more product at an affordable price. This also reduces the cost barrier that has kept many potential players out of the hobby. And the more players that come into the hobby, the more potential customers. Not to mention it becomes easier to attract younger players, with lower costs. And new players are definitely needed to sustain this hobby. When I look around the hobby, I see a lot of 25-40 year olds, as well as older players. But I seldom see younger players coming into the hobby, largely because of the costs associated with it, unless a parent also plays.
Also, GW needs to be more responsive to their customers – the players and hobbyists. I have seen some exciting developments with some made to order offers recently. There is no reason with today’s technology that they can not do more of this, and at a much more affordable price. For example, GW hasn’t offered a good set of chaos cultists in 40K since the Dark Vengeance box, with the exception of the recent made to order reprint of that box. Chaos players have been forced to use cultists from Blackstone Fortress or Necromunda to create cultists units. Why could GW not release the cultists from DV separately? Or release the new cultists sculpts in a box or 10 or 20 cultists? Or make them available “made to order”? Cultists are a staple of any chaos army. Warlord games does not stock every unit in their catalog, but will make to order many units.
Or what about their paint pots, a pet peeve of mine. I understand that they have copy written the design. But let’s face it, the pots suck. They often don’t seal well, leading to dried out pots. The lids are annoying, to say the least. And the headache of transferring paint to an airbrush is horrible. Why can GW not just concede that dropper bottles are much better (especially for air paints) and go using them. They seal better, preventing them from drying out, and allow you much better control over your paint and and much easier transfer paint to your palette or airbrush. I know many hobbyists that painstakingly transfer all their Citadel paints to dropper bottles as it is.
I know that I took off on a tangent, or tirade about GW. But let me put forth one last thought about the manual situation. DVDs and Blu-rays have long been released with a digital copy included. Why can GW not include a digital copy with all physical copy sales. I am somewhat old school, and still like to have a hard copy of things. But I also embrace technology. Including a digital copy of the manual with the physical copy is not a big extra expense, and allows for a vehicle to make realtime updates to manuals to keep them up to date, without the additional issues associated with setting up a subscription based manual library. And its much easier to keep several digital, and up to date, manuals on my iPad that I carry with me, opposed to numerous hard copies of manuals.
To sum up things, GW needs to focus on providing better value to their customers and the hobby, in order to maintain and grow the hobby, instead of raping players with ever increasing prices while providing no additional benefits or value to their customers.
It’s been years since I was a new player, so I may be disconnected to the neophytes of the day. However, I remember hating having to buy the books, and this was the start of 4ed. I wanted models. Books got in the way of getting models. It’s partly why I left 40k during 6/7th and played warmachine.
A lot of good speculation in your article. I agree with much of it. Lockdown has only been a few months and with hope more restrictions will continue over the next month or so and return to a (new) normal. I could easily see 9th {8.5) being delayed until late this Summer all way to next Summer but it’s coming. It’s inevitable.
To those carrying all that angst, you have the easy choice of continue playing the edition of your choice, be it 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. The only ones who might have real complaint is the Competitive Player who is forced to ‘keep up’ with the game and the meta. I personally appreciate the Competitive play and GW current team that works hard to ‘fix’ things that wouldn’t have been given a whiff back when I was playing in 2nd edition.
Make terrain an interesting part of the game and develop a subscription for updates and 8.5 / 9th can be the best edition the game has ever seen.
Honestly i love 8th editon but if they could get rid of the first round slaughter id be much appricate and sime armies meed to tweaks and alot of them the balance out the game play for other armies and mostlt useless and overly situational and model stratagems
“But all things considered, two or three books isn’t so bad.”
Don’t be an apologist/white knight. Fluff is for the Black Library. Just streamline the rules so everyone has access.
We live in the 21st Century where we have e-Books which can be updated on the fly. No need to have paper or multiple copies of the same rules (which they still demand a premium for and they go to press with the same wrong information).
GW has done a much better job since the upper level management change, but their publishing has still been a disaster.
That was uncalled for. You can disagree without name calling.
In a practical sense, another hard reset like 7th to 8th would be the only way to get rid of the bloat without going digital, or at least an “all these books are no longer valid, only the latest codex works”. If they were to make any core datasgeet changes (like adding back Initiative or comparative WS or firing arcs) it’d necessitate remaking every single of the hundreds of units in the game. Which would doubly suck, because a) it’d invalidate many people’s purchases and threaten burnout and b) the later 8th ed rules have actually improved a lot quality-wise and it’d be a shame to just scrap all that. If you want to have everything (codices, supplements, FAQs) nicely collated there’s third-party sites for ir, but they’re both obviously illegal and ethically questionable, not to mention evidently not tournament-asmissible. But if GW doesn’t pick up the slack it’s just gonna get more common. As much as I like many of the latest additions to the game from a design perspective, and I think the frequent FAQs and fixes are very much a good thing, you can’t expect people to be carting around an ever-growing pile of books and peintouts just to be able to play legally.
A lot of the current bloat is having a ton of additional rules and stratagem whose only purpose is to increase power of units without changing their datasheets. Consoliating them in the datasheet is pretty much mandatory at that point, especially for marines.
One of the frustrating thing is that you can’t even pull the datasheet of an unit and have any idea of what it actually do. You need to pore through stratagems for that, and over multiple book quite often.
That’s a good point. As they committed to making no datasheet changes outside of codices or new models, and no points-costing upgrades for some reason, it results in units having to pay a CP tax to function properly. Krootox Riders, Nemesis Dreadknights, Toxicrenes and more are saddled with special stratagems that really should be put into their datasheets. I can see why it is how it is, but it feels like GW should revisit their approach (and ease up on the model-datasheet mandatory correlation).
Curtis Malcolm summed up a lot of my same opinions. I remember a GW (waaaaay) back in the day (RT and 2nd ed.)that actually encouraged creativity: something that has been whittled down to just painting skills, for the most part.
Even a lot of the tactics that could possibly add some random battle changes have been modified to the point of being completely unrealistic.
Being a resurrected gamer from the old days has proven quite a challenge trying to recapture the appeal that it used to.
I know a lot of people want to move to digital copies of the rules, but I’ve only ever had bad experiences when my opponent uses digital copies at tournaments.
It usually takes them ages to find the specific rule, having to go out of the current codex, load another one and then find the rule. Plus, it is usually on a tiny screen on their phone that is difficult to read and really tough to refer to several times during the game.
… and that’s different with physical books ?
But really, there is also a very big organizational problem. You could credibly need for a single unit the space marine codex, the chapter specific codex, the PA book, and one of the Vigilus book, for the various stratagem/warlord trait/other kind of buff. Regardless of it being electronic or physical, looking through 4 books for disparate information is a chore.
I’ve always found it way quicker to look up rules in a book than it takes to do with a tablet or phone.
Not me digital is much faster with indexing but gw digital has usually been a disaster so I’m not holding my breath for this one.
changing edition now would be suicide. With a massive global recession on its way and the possible disruptions to product caused by multinational politics involving china, now is the time to play it safe and fortify the company for hard times.
Worst case scenario if production in china is no longer viable they would have to build new manufacturing plants, pay a lot more in staffing / production costs and possibly loose existing mold sets cutting product viability significantly , all the while suffering from a massive downturn in product sales.
GW has a history of making poor fiscal decisions though so who knows (at least kirby isnt at the helm any more), but either way the next few months to a year could be make or break for them.
As for books I gave up buying books in 4th edition, once you rules for a single army started to be spread around between White Dwarf, mini faction books and core codicies. I moved to other ways of taking the rules i needed to tournaments, mostly a printed binder with just the pages i required from various sources so i only had 1 book. Saves time , space and sanity when you have everything on hand.