Or it may be as bad as people fear, or it may be worse. No one knows, and wont for a few months at least. Most if not all aren't condeming 9th, just discussing what it may be and being cautious or stopping spending till then depending on how much of the rumoured changes they dont like the sound of.
My point is as a whole GW has been improving Warhammer with every edition. I honestly look back at previous editions and 8th is the best incarnation of the game. I would prefer it if 8th was smoothed out more like 6th was, as 8th has some places in the rules that power spike (WoC daemon princes, nuke spells, laser cannons, etc), but as a whole 8th is very solid of a mass wargame. Its major flaws though are 1) it became cluttered in how its rules are laid out 2) it encourages units twice the size of previous editions 3) its learning curve is steep and bumpy before its smooth sailing.
Now, if GW were too remove or smooth out the bumpy parts. You are still left with a very solid, tactical game. If they then help it scale (like older editions) then new players can get in with smaller investment and when we play them we can come down in point value and still have a good game. I look forward to this, honestly. Warhammer had become help me build my 2400-3000 all comers army. That needs to change.
Then look at the End Times models coming out. That is the face of the new Warhammer to come. Its not going to be Fantasy in space or Warma/hordes. Its going to be Blightkings, Stormfiends, and Morghasts. We are going to see a fantasy that is less generic and more specific. All of the chaos gods stuff will be the same, except maybe beastmen getting god specific units instead of generic goatmen. Skaven will get more arcane techno and horned rat elements. The undead will become more tied to the Wind of Death and the underworld. Elves are going to embrace their Phoenix and Khaine themes, possibly gaining specialized troops and spellcasters in a fantasy approach to the eldar. Lizardmen will connect to their Old Ones legacy, which is why they saved parts of lustria and their temples. In fact, I bet most of the bubble rumor ties to whatever magics the lizardmen are going to use secure their destiny.
The rumor of the core troops for each army being thinned downed and shared is a good sign too. It means that though they may be cutting down the generic stuff, in some fashion, it will remain as those things bulk up the armies and give them their basic themes. For example, skeletons, ghouls, zombies and wights being undead core. For elves, spearmen, elven riders, archers. For Chaos, it'd be the warriors, knights and chariots maybe. Getting rid of marauders in exchange for a more armored evil army look. Daemons and god specific beastmen making up the rest of the army and being core if your general is one of them (again).
I really doubt that Warhammer is going to lose 30 years of history, lore, intellectual property and not take us in a direction that builds excitingly well off of all that.
Take the possibility of the Empire. Empire, Bretonnia and Dwarfs are all slower sellers. Cool lore/fluff, but not high enough interest in them to keep producing the armies like they do. So, newhammer allows you to play the old lists as is still. Ok, so no harm no fowl. Then it has a new version of Empire. In this version, Karl Franz is an Incarnate. Bound to the wind of Heavens. He has supernatural powers, the Warhammer namesake is a potent and frightening legendary artifact in the setting now. He has an order of knights around him that are some chosen bloodline of Sigmar. Even better yet, maybe Franz dies and he becomes a "good" chaos god, binding the powers of incarnate into some holy order of Sigmar Knights. These guys end up with blessings of Sigmar, special weapons tied to the Wind of Heavens etc. They become basically the anti-chaos warriors in fantasy. That could be pretty awesome.
Then you take all of the awesome elements of Bretonnia - The Lady, Prophetesses, Grail Knights, Virtues, Questing Knights, etc and plop in the remnants of Bretonnia. Make it part of the empire by having Bretonnian refuges get sanctuary in New Altdorf. The knights swear allegiance to the new Empire. Same for the dwarfs. Slayers, Ironbreakers, Irondrakes, Longbeards etc all make their way into the new Empire army. They become the engineers and weapon/armor smiths now that Nuln is destroyed. You leave enough of the more popular elements of these armies within the Empire. Enough that a player who wants to use Bretonnian knights and Lady's Blessings (now in the form of gifts) along with state spearmen, swordsmen etc from the empire (that they can use their peasant models to represent), they can still field a Bretonnian army. Same goes for the Dwarfs. If the right pieces are their, all the war machines and iconic regiments make their way in and you basically still have your dwarf army.
But what is also created out of it, is a new empire. One with the rich history of the Warhammer world, an alliance of men and dwarves (maybe Ogres, though its better if they go to the Orcs) working together to survive the apocalypse of the End Times. Rebuilding civilization from the ashes of the Empire, Bretonnia and the Dwarfs strong holds. They're future becomes threatened and unknown and one of humanity struggling against the darkness that surrounds them. The elves, chaos, undead, orcs and goblins and skaven now are all very real threats to man's broken kingdom but they all have reasons to work together too against one another. Elves would find shelter within the World Roots and Athel Loren, perhaps even other warp pockets (similar to eldar in
40k) using the world roots to enter into battle. The undead would be connected to the underworld and lead by Nagash and Arkhan from the mobile Black Pyramid. Their reach through necromancy and the black pyramid, plus paths through the underworld via the wind of death unlimited. Orcs, goblins and ogres could have gone wild. Migrating and claiming the ruined kingdoms now abandoned. Raiding and ravaging the fringes of civilization. The
horde in abundance, free to scour the lands. Chaos likewise tied to the wastes, the realm of chaos and whatever eye of terror effect coming. Some warbands wander, some conqueror and some use the warp to attack. Chaos would become a threat that strikes in different eras, times, and places based on the whims of the Chaos Gods. Skaven would build above ground and connect their kingdoms with the remains of the under-empire. Shrines to the great horned rat decorate the landscape. Their network of tunnels and skitterleap type magics allowing them to get anywhere. The lizardmen would float on the sky temples. Their lands held aloft and drift over the world. They go in search of lost treasures of the old ones and put them into use. Striking from the sky and still using magic to create portals and march their armies into anywhere they need to be. I expect lizardmen to have more features like the Engine of the Gods and troops armed with that type of "technology".
This setting could happen and it would be mindblowing. The old black and white Forces of Order and Destruction would be gone. A new world built from the ruin of the old, familiar yet strange and exciting. Tapping into all of the rich history and lore and giving us a new and unpredictable story to build armies and stage battles around. GW will have successfully put a whole new spin on the geo-political aspects of a fantasy wargame and given Warhammer a much needed breath of new life. The end result of the End Times could be down right amazing.