So I guess I should just wait for this to jump into the series?
The first two games never really grabbed me. I've played a bunch of both but never came away feeling really satisfied as a WH noob. These two new factions grab me though.
I'm definitely a WH noob as well but I've heard good things about WHII and wonder if I should play that first or just hold out for the new version.
The answer to that is going to depend on a number of factors. The short, oversimplified version, however, is that yes, you probably want to wait for WH3 at this point.
As enjoyable as Warhammer 2 is, it also suffers from a number of issues, including crappy siege battles and absurdly long loading times (due to poor optimization) -- issues that WH3 is expected to address. When you add in that Warhammer 3 is also going to have more playable factions at the start (6 instead of the usual 4), more features and interesting mechanics, a *much* larger campaign map, and-who-knows-what-else, at this point it makes more to sense to just wait.
The caveat to all this is the Mortal Empires campaign: If you only own Warhammer 3, you'll need to go and purchase both WH1 & WH2 to have access to it.