Warhammer 40,000 11th Edition is on the horizon. It was announced at Adepticon in March 2026. Here’s what you should know to be ready for it along with our answers to a few FAQs. We’ll update this as new information comes to light.
When will 11th Edition arrive?
The smart money is on Summer 2026. Games Workshop releases a new major edition of most of their games every three years and 10th edition went up for pre-order on 11th June 2023.
Will existing models be compatible?
Yes! People spend a lot of time and money on their miniatures. Obsoleting them all when a new edition lands would cause riots.
Sometimes models “go to Legends”. These are typically models which GW don’t make any more (often because they were designed in the days of metal and resin so are expensive to produce and don’t look very good) or which were produced for different game systems. This doesn’t happen to a great many models each edition, and when it does GW provide rules for a few years so you can still play them in causal games.
Sometimes models get replaced with newer designs, but you can still use the old designs (although if their base side changes than you are encouraged to rebase them or add base extenders).
Will be existing books be compatible?
Yes (at least army rules will).
GW tend to do two kinds of updates for new editions. Ones that give the rules a major overhaul and break compatibility with everything, and ones which are more of a refinement of the current system.
GW have told us that 11th edition is going to use the existing 10th edition army rules (so your Codexes will still be good). They haven’t mentioned missions so don’t expect your 10th edition battleplans from White Dwarf, Chapter Approved, and Crusade supplements to carry forward.
Will I need to buy a new Codex?
Yes, but not immediately.
When the 11th edition Codex for a faction is released it will obsolete the 10th edition one (or the free rules download if there isn’t a valid Codex for an existing faction).
However, the Codexes are released slowly over the first two years or so of the edition’s lifecycle (with the Codexes for the two factions in the launch box being the first two). Until then your existing Codex will be fine.
Launch box? What is in it?
GW opens an edition with a chunky discount bundle deal. This time around it is Armageddon.
Most of the contents are still under wraps; we do know that it will contain new sculpts for Space Marine Intercessors and Ork Boyz. They are staple units so this set to be a great starting point for anyone wanting to start one of those factions but a bit lackluster for players who have got a lot of those troop types already.
Mentioned on the live steam and in the cinematic trailer we may also see:
- A new Ork walker
- A redesigned landspeeder
- New Vanguard Veterans
- A Chaplain
Since the announcement we have started to get additional model previews:
If it is anything like 10th edition’s Leviathan then you’ll get a chunky hardback copy of the setting background and core rules, the accessories needed for matched play games, and a big pile of miniatures for the two launch factions. It’s a very tempting pile of cheap plastic ideal for luring hobbyists over the new the edition (since most of the models won’t have rules for the previous edition).
Launch factions?
Editions arrive with a narrative about a big campaign between two factions. One of them is always Space Marines (they are astonishingly popular models) while the other changes each time. Armageddon is a classic battleground of the setting where the Orks have been waging war with the Imperium for almost as long as Warhammer 40,000 has existed.
I want to start playing, should I wait?
No! Dive in!
GW produces new material at a tremendous rate. If you wait for the next big thing then there will only be another next big thing when it arrives. Dive in, have fun.
If you start with a Combat Patrol box you’ll get the core of an army at a discount price and can play games using the Combat Patrol game mode. This let’s you get started quickly by tweaking the rules so you can pit the contents of one Combat Patrol box against another. It’s a great way to learn to play and the rules for it are completely free to download from Warhammer-Community. You’ll need the core rules (as you do for any Warhammer 40,000 game), the combat patrol rules (which has the missions for these small scale games), and the rules for the specific combat patrol box (which replace the need to buy a Codex) you are using.
What rules changes can we expect?
We had some tidbits at the announcement:
- Detachments now cost detachment points and you can include multiple in one army.
- The Chapter Approved rule that limits you to 2 (or 4 for Battleline) copies of any given unit is now a core rule.
- Some enhancements can be applied to non-character units
- Your choice of detachments will influence your scoring rules. There are 5 force dispositions and each detachment has one or more of them. These describe the general type of missions that it is good at (a little like Kill Team archetypes) and the primary mission will be determined by the combination of force dispositions picked by both players.
- Circular objectives are being replaced by terrain footprints
- Terrain rules are getting a shake up including cover bonuses helping against hit rolls instead of helping saving throws
- One Stratagem per unit per phase so you can’t turn a unit into a god-tier unit by spamming command points at it
- You cannot target a unit that has not shot if it is in a piece of terrain too far away. This means that, during deployment especially, you can keep units safe until they get involved. This may see an end to the popular house rule that the ground floor of ruins have solid walls even if modeled otherwise.
- In the Combat Phase, Fast Rolling by default (the rules are now written to roll dice together instead of it being an optional thing if you can work out that all the dice are equal)
- Strikes First units belonging to the active player go first (it sounds like it still alternates one at a time, but the active player gets to pick first). There’s an implication that the charge bonus and the strikes first ability are being unmerged.
- Pile-in and Consolidate have been split out from Combat. So you pile in with every unit, then you fight with every unit, then you consolidate with every unit.
- Charging target selection is now after rolling to see how far you can charge. This removes the gamble of trying to charge a tasty unit that is further away from a less attractive victim.
- Combat Disembark: Units can exit a transport directly into combat with an enemy unit (but will be battleshocked)
- Leaders are assigned to units at list building time but keep the benefits of leadership if their bodyguard is killed.
No doubt there will be more to come. On an episode of How We Roll on Warhammer TV one of the designers mentioned that making wargear options free had been limiting, so we might see a return to weapon choices having variable points costs.
Will the Mobile App be supported?
Yes. It is getting a “huge refresh” there are “loads of things coming for it”.
The first new feature will be wider language support with English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. This will start with core, mission and Combat Patrol rules.
In the first post-Adepticon update we learned that it is going to include a scoreboard and the ability to see your opponent’s data sheets during the game.
What is going to happen to Chaos Daemons?
We don’t know. Here are the facts:
- They only received downloadable rules in 10th edition; there was no Codex.
- They are a reasonably large range of models that are cross-compatible between AoS and 40K and GW tends to avoid that
What could happen? The most speculative bit of the post here, but here’s my top three guesses:
The faction could be removed making them locked to the God-specific Chaos factions. Possibly with rules that allow them to be allies of Chaos Space Marines. Possibly with a detachment that mirrors the Age of Sigmar Slaves to Darkness Army of Renown that is all demons.
The faction could be revamped and relaunched with new daemons that are more sci-fi in appearance to separate their model range from the AoS variety.
Nothing in particular. They just get an 11th edition Codex.
Why a new edition anyway?
Bluntly: money.
New editions sell really well. That makes money and money is why GW produces the game.
Editions also generate huge amounts of buzz in the media, social media, and elsewhere which brings in new players. New players are fantastic!
They keep the game alive. People drift away from the game all the time and, without new players, the number of people playing the game would eventually shrink. It’s great to have a game with a huge player base! You can find a local store with a community to play games with. There’s a tournament you can enter going on somewhere in the country almost every week.
Does keeping up with rules changes hurt the brain and the wallet sometimes? Well, it does mine, but I’d rather that then see the game petter out.
Would it be better if editions didn’t come around so quickly? I’d prefer it, but the three-year cycle is working for GW and I don’t see them stepping away from it too soon.
Warhammer 40,000 is a phenomenal success; the benefits of it being so large are a reward for putting up with the rules churn.
