This is brought courtesy of www.warseer.com

Order of army books that were released during 6th edition
Empire (oct 2000)
Orcs & Goblins (nov 2000)
Dwarfs (jan 2001)
Vampire Counts (apr 2001)
Dark Elves (jun 2001)
High Elves (jan 2002)
Skaven (mar 2002)
Hordes of Chaos (jun 2002)
Tomb Kings (jan 2003)
Lizardmen (may 2003)
Beasts of Chaos (aug 2003)
Bretonnia (feb 2004)
Ogre Kingdoms (jan 2005)
Wood Elves (aug 2005)
Dwarfs* (mar 2006)
*redo
Note that the last couple of books were written when the 7th edition rules were almost completely done and so they work much better under 7th edition than most other 6th edition armies. For that reason they are not very likely to get an update at all in 7th edition and will more likely be redone in early 8th edition.

7th edition
The seventh edition of the rulebook was published in september 2006 and like the change from 4th to 5th edition, going from 6th to 7th changed relatively little. All army books remailed useable, though naturally some things became more or less useful than they were.

Army books released so far during 7th edition
Orcs & Goblins (oct 2006)
Empire (jan 2007)
High Elves (nov 2007)
Vampire Counts (mar 2008)
Daemons of Chaos (may 2008)
Dark Elves (aug 2008)
Warriors of Chaos (nov 2008)

Upcoming known army books (in order)
Lizardmen (feb 2009)
Skaven (july/august? 2009)
Beasts of Chaos (late 2009 / early 2010?)
Tomb Kings (late 2009 / early 2010?)

Army books just behind the horizon (order not known)
Ogre Kingdoms (early 2010?)
Bretonnia (first half 2010?)
Note that releases more than a year away are always subject to change (though this does not happen very often), so we can only know things that are reasonably close for certain anyway.

8th edition
At the moment it looks like 8th edition will hit us medio 2010, with a release schedule probably similar to what Warhammer 40K had in 2008 – a new rulebook in july(ish) and a new starter set in september(ish). Most army books will have been released by that time, the starter set will be four years old (common lifespan for an edition of the core games is 4 years) and GW will likely want to put out a new, fresh one to attract new customers and tempt the veterans with deals that are “just too good not to get, even if I don’t play either of the two armies”. It is important to understand that new editions are primarily made to keep the excitement about the game high and NOT primarily about balancing anything. So expect rule tweaks to make the game more immersive and intuitve first and foremost.

The starter set will almost certainly include two set starter forces, quite different from each other. It will most likely be one “goodie” and one “baddie”. The odds of it being Orcs & Goblins versus Empire are quite high.

Wild suggestions that will certainly crop up are:
- all existing army books will be invalidated (rubbish)
- Warhammer might switch to a D10 system instead of D6 (rubbish)
- the turn order might change from I Go, You Go to some kind of integrated system (rubbish)
- the game background might change dramatically, with the Empire being conquered by Chaos or something similar (rubbish)
These things always turn up when a new edition is underway and should be regarded with a healty dose of skepticism.

Army books or projects far off or uncertain
Dwarfs (early 8th edition?)
Wood Elves (early 8th edition?)
Chaos Dwarfs (GW “will develop them when we will have the time to, and resources”)
Dogs of War (no plans to develop them)