What Codex's Are Coming?

I think at this point even the most hardened individual would agree that Dark Eldar are coming next. Shortly after that, the consensus seems to be Grey Knights, with good reasons. The Stormraven for instance, needs to be created.

After that however, I have been under the assumption that Necrons would be next, probably some time around March/April of 2011... i.e. around the same time that Blood Angels were released this year.

I hope that is still true, and for now, I will assume that it is. I read recently they may get a Fall 2011 release, and if that is true, then there is quite a gap till this time next year.

I believe that 40K 5th edition will be released in summer of 2012. It's always released during summers, and that would be 4 years, which is about as long as a system lasts these days. Lately, GW has been releasing codex's at a rate of about 3 a year. That's rather poor IMHO actually. Let's do a track record. This is off the top of my head, so stay with me.

Summer of 2008 - 40K 5th Edition
Fall 2008 - Space Marines
Spring 2009 - Imperial Guard
Fall 2009 - Space Wolves
Winter 2010 - Tyranids
Spring 2010 - Blood Angels
Fall 2010 - Dark Eldar

Now, who does that leave for 5th edition codexes?

Necrons
Sisters of Battle
Grey Knights
Tau
Eldar
Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Demons
Orks
Dark Angels
Black Templars

Now,we are just past the 1/2 way point into 5th edition, we have a little less then two years of this edition left. Jervis has said that every codex will get a 5th edition codex. Well... I'm not saying he is wrong, but I think there may be a break between what he consideres "5th edition" and what actually was released during 5th edition. Generally codex's released toward the end of an edition have some of the new ideas integrated into them.

For 5th Edition, I think we can assume that the following Codex's are what GW considers also 5th edition, even though they were released in 4th.

Dark Angels
Orks


This leaves 9 codex's left to be released. At 3 a year, that is simply not going to happen. So who is going to be left out?

However, we do know something else, the Space Marines will be in the boxed set, and it will be a xenos they are fighting. (2nd Edition was Orks, 3rd Edition Dark Eldar, 4th Edition tyranids, 5th Edition, Orks.

Also something I think that is interesting. Black Templars are the main race in the new 40K MMO that is expected for release in 2012. It May be that the Black Templars await their release until 6th edition, so they coincide with the release of the MMO. That is what I would do if I were GW.

That leaves no more then 4 more codex's in this edition, and that is assuming a faster creation period that we have recently gotten.

Necrons - Released 2011(?)
Sisters of Battle - No idea... but I wouldn't be surprised if they got the Blood Angels PDF treatment when the Grey Knights were released.

Grey Knights - Winter - 2011 - All but confirmed.
Tau - Unknown
Eldar - Unknown
Chaos Space Marines - Unknown
Chaos Demons - Unknown
Orks - 5th Edition Codex (effectively) will wait till 6th edition.
Dark Angels - 5th Edition Codex (Stupidly) will wait till 6th edition
Black Templars - May be the first codex in 6th edition or early into it.

So we have the following open windows
Winter 2011 - Grey Knights (?)
Spring 2011 - Necrons (?)
Summer 2011 -
Fall 2011 -
Winter - 2012
Spring - 2012
Summer - 2012 - 40K 6th Edition

So four slots... here is my predictions: Eldar, Chaos Space Marine, Tau in that order, with one more codex in there somewhere before the end of the edition.... maybe (GW may not release one).

I know no more rumors then anyone else, just my thoughts.