So, not long after the launch of the new Warhammer World website, the main GW site is currently down for maintenance as the covers are being removed on the brand new site! See that bit on the right? That’s a sprue, which seems to be an awesome looking model available to anyone ordering over a certain amount once the new site is up and running: 
And the offer itself with a pic of the finished model (which looks rather tasty I have to say): 
Look to the skies!
After the mysterious activities on the Games Workshop website yesterday, presumably just to build tension (given that these days there is no technical reason to take a site offline for a whole day to launch a web site!) it’s back, it’s new and, er, well is same but different.
It’s still just Games Workshop
No clever attempt at an integration of the Forge World and Black Library sites (as expected really, given that at no point yesterday did these sites disappear), it’s just the Games Workshop website, with some differences (see below). This is a good thing in my view, Forge World and Black Library have great individual identities and if they had been subsumed into a new ‘pure eCommerce’ site like this one then the community would have lost a significant amount of the flavour that they bring to our hobby.
The new design
Isn’t a million miles away from the old one. It’s still image-driven but now it’s even clearer that this is a retail store. Pretty much all of the ‘hobby’ content, bar the “What’s new” and “White Dwarf” sections, has gone and the menu layout and options are definitely geared towards purchasing, with options to select by price range and force organisation/ army composition rather than just driving you through the standard ‘army’ channels.
There are some good tweaks here, specifically to make the site more generally accessible across more devices, and as a result the hover menus have died a necessary death. It’s slightly annoying that you have to click on check boxes, not words as that gives you a smaller target area to aim at (especially on a mobile device), but I definitely prefer it over the last front end, much cleaner and easier to read and the new ‘list’ of products view is nicer.
One potentially useful new feature is the ability to select multiple categories at once from the side bar, very much a standard eCommerce feature but I’m not sure how necessary it is for this site. Unless of course you really need to look at Beastmen and Dwarves in one product list…
Mobile/ tablet friendly
Probably the biggest change folks are talking about (on Twitter, where Games Workshop notably still are not) is the introduction of a ‘proper’ mobile site. My feeling on this is, yup it’s nice, but really if there had been a site relaunch without some response design to accommodate mobile users then that would have been a serious negative point against it. It’s good to have, but should be auto-include for a retail web site these days.
FAQ off!
This is probably the ‘biggy’ in this revamp, Games Workshop have completely stripped out the FAQs section.
This isn’t totally unforeseen, after all the FAQs haven’t been updated in a long while, and Games Workshop’s general shift towards digital content might suggest that they’ll simply shift them into automatic codex/army/rule book updates plus possibly a return to the old days of ‘official’ update books? I think that latter option is unlikely, Games Workshop have put considerable effort into their digital offerings of late and I suspect they want us all to just buy iPads and receive over the air updates so that we’re all using the version of rules they consider to be ‘the right ones’. Not that that’s much help if you don’t have a fruit-based tablet, of course…
We will have to wait and see what impact this has on the tournament and general hobby scene. After all if Games Workshop have taken them down, does this mean they won’t allow them at Warhammer World events? Most tournaments, I suspect, will still count them as valid (after all, they’re still an official Games Workshop offering), but how will new players get hold of them if not from the Games Workshop web site?
Your account is dead, long live your (new) account!
Part of the revamp involved a new platform and I guess rather than attempt (and therefore pay for) a migration of existing accounts, Games Workshop have scrapped all existing accounts and wish/gift lists. Not a massive issue really and certainly not worth holding up a new site for, but something to be aware of nonetheless!
Final thoughts
So all-in-all not a bad revamp, but clearly another step towards Games Workshop’s online presence being about two things, retail sales and retail sales. Oh wait, that’s the same thing twice. I do think they’re trying, with the White Dwarf revamp, the weekly release schedule and the hiving off of all social content to the stores to explicitly split off our relationship with Games Workshop HQ as a retail body from our relationship to the stores, hence retaining the store Facebook pages. It’s an interesting move on their part and I guess time will tell how successful a strategy it is, but with their one-man store policy and a clear desire to drive footfall back into stores as hobby centres you can see a picture developing where we go back to the days of our primary relationship to the Games Workshop part of the hobby being bricks and mortar centric. At least I suspect that’s what Games Workshop are trying to achieve.
I’m back from my adventure to Adepticon, and I brought home lots of goodies! One of my favorite pieces came from Forge World, the fearsome Calas Typhon [So much want - Ed]. I’ve unboxed him so you can get a decent look at him.
I haven’t been too keen on a few of the Horus Heresy character models that Forge World has released, but Calas really strikes me. He may move to the top of my painting queue. He’ll certainly be assembled this weekend.
Also in that queue are several other Horus Heresy characters including Angron, Fulgrim, and Abaddon and Loken. I eventually plan to have the whole set of HH characters, which is getting harder to do as they release them at a faster pace. Originally, I had just planned on getting the Primarchs, but the other characters have been such interesting models that I decided to go for them all.
My wallet weeps.
I hope you enjoyed getting to see Calas Typhon!
Must…buy…toys…must…buy…toys…. No it’s not Mat, but you’d be forgiven for thinking so. Instead it was me wandering around aimlessly trying to find shizzle to buy at the end of Salute on Saturday. I went in with a good idea of what I wanted but after picking up my hefty (and heavy) Forge World order, purchases were unfortunately few and far between.
The day went largely as expected in accordance with the pre-Salute post – far more business over pleasure and the vast majority of my time was spent engaged in conversations with gaming companies old and new. It was a very productive day on that front with some downright fantastic agreements made with several major companies and numerous encouraging discussions with others, who were also showing signs of following suit. Despite the dedicated focus we still ran out of time at the end and missed out on several stands we wanted to visit, there just weren’t enough hours in the day in truth.
The walks between the companies we wanted to talk to was where I attempted to find the things I wanted to buy. Some bits for my Warhammer Empire army were high on the list but there was an absolute dearth of their products available, being limited to just boxes of State Troops and the occasional Greatswords. I know Games Workshop removed many of the items I needed from the list available to independent stockists but I thought given the scale of the event some would still be available from the three I wanted: Demigryphs, Helblaster, Pistoliers/Outriders. But no. I did grab an absolute bargain in the form of a brand new metal Marius Leitdorf for just £4 – yes you read that right. Just £4. A pricing error? Who knows, but I didn’t wait around to ask. I also bagged a pack of Purple and Gold dice to go with my Emperors Children, very fitting I thought, and a ruined building from Amera Plastic Mouldings (review to follow soon). But that was it. I had still spent a hefty sum on my Forge World order, but I went home with £160 still burning through my pocket and now charring the flesh of my thigh. So here’s what I got (because most of my stuff came as bags of parts, which aren’t very exciting, I’ve used images from web):
I think you’ll agree that if any Imperial Tank could ever be considered sexy, the Sicaran would be it – with it’s sleek profile and…er…armour plates. Backing it up with a pimp set of Phoenix Guard means I should have one good looking army once they hit the table top alongside one of last years Salute purchases, the Emperors Children Contemptor Dreadnought (with twin Kheres and a back up Power Claw, of course).
At the time of writing I have just ordered a variety of the magnets I wanted and now have to further resort to trawling the web to satisfy my hobby cravings and try to find things that can convince me to part with my cash – but it’s not the same. When your there and it’s in your hands something almost takes over you, and you just start throwing money in peoples faces and running off before someone’s mind changes. Still, at least I’ll get a free Space Marine Captain if I order from Games Workshop direct.
Until next year, the sound of Neil singing the Salute theme tune will remain a memory.
*The Salute theme tune goes as thus: Saying the word Salute repeatedly to the tune of Black Adder (writing credit: Rob Mossop).*
It’s been a little while since I’ve reviewed anything for the Grim Dark Future of the 41st Millennium so this article is a bit of a treat as I’m taking a look at the awe-inspiring Imperial Knight kit. I’ve always felt very fortunate to do what I do but some days I really have to pinch myself…
For those that either (A) aren’t old enough or (B) haven’t been in the hobby long enough, Imperial Knights made their debut in Epic, the 5mm game of awesomeness that has sadly fallen by the wayside along with all the other specialist games. The Knights filled an ill-fitting hole in the military offering of the Imperium being neither a Titan, nor a platoon of armour. Instead they were a kind of sucky middle ground that were often used as a distraction for the Mega Gargants that were also included in the Titan Legions boxset. The Knight Paladins looked a little something like this…
Now they look like this…
I mean look at it! It’s massive. Whilst I lament the demise of Epic Armageddon as much as any gamer as seasoned as I, or as someone who appreciates an amazing rule set, I have to full conceded that the 40k scale Knight is amazing. I wasn’t sold on the idea originally, although I totally called it when rumour of an Imperial large kit was in the offing all those months ago. I thought it was going to be a glorified Dreadknight. Nothing to really write home about. I rarely enjoy being wrong but on this occasion I briefly considered getting t-shirts made.
It looks gorgeous. Now there’s been some nonsense floating around about how GW ripped off the Cygnar warjack design to which I have this to say: the Knight model was there first. Whilst a dramatic evolution from the old models shown above, the hallmarks are all there. Plus it’s just superior in just about every way possible to a warjack model (no disrespect to Privateer). That’s not me Warmachine bashing. It’s better than most models I can think of beyond boutique resin models that occupy a league of their own.
Absolutely everything about the kit screams careful consideration. Not just how the model goes together, which is very clever and in some aspects resembles more an Airfix kit than toy soldiers, but the look and simple posability. Granted it loses something by the legs not being even slightly posable. This does mean that short of attacking your £80 kit with a saw your Knight is going to look largely like any other. However, the way arms and head all go together means that you can still tell a story or strike a roguish pose. And that’s pretty important.
The other significant detail is how very un-40k it is. Now bear with me on this. The Knights are an STC from the first expansion of man. They are older than just about any other fighting machine, suit or armour or weapon in the Imperium. Some have been painstakingly maintained over 15,000 years and so the design aesthetic and the technology level is different. Not vastly but enough that it’s noticeable. Enough that you look at the Knight and can see it’s an entirely more elegant construct than a Warlord Titan or even a Warhound.
It’s all beautiful curving armour plates and simple (but not crude) manufacture for longevity. And the detail is just the best. Everything about the model is stunning. The face plates, the weaponry, even the handles and grip rails that are totally unnecessary but fit right in. My own two – no really – gripes are the battle cannon is a bit bland. I suspect it was designed to look like a lance and it just looks like a slim-line acme cannon. I don’t hate, but I don’t love it and helped me make the decision to build my Knight as an Errant. The other is that some parts of the build are a bit fussy which could be helped if the instructions didn’t suck out loud. The visuals are poor and the close-ups are blurry versions of the main images and so are pointless.
However, it isn’t the most complicated kit in the world so with a bit of careful thought and trying pieces before gluing them you should be fine. One would hope. With careful gluing you can keep quite a lot of movement in the arms just to make things more fun and with some very careful cuts and the strategic placing of magnets you can quite possibly build it to switch out the weapons.
On the board it’s a beast. Weighing in between 370 & 375 points depending on your weapon of choice, it’s a toughie with armour 13 at the front and 12 at the sides and rear with 3 hull points on top. And if that weren’t enough the Ion Shield affords it an invulnerable save. Throw in some handy special rules and some horrendous weaponry and you’ve got yourself a party.
The weaponry is equally tasty. As I mentioned, the options are either a two shot battle cannon – which is nothing to be sniffed at, or a turbo charged melta weapon with more strength and a large blast. Both have merits and your regular opponents will most likely dictate your choice. I opted for the latter mainly from a design point of view, but as I have plenty of opponents with vehicles or multiple wounds, splatting them with a melta gun of doom followed by the fooking great chainsword of destruction is too good an opportunity to pass up. And speaking of the FGCOD, it’s just madness. It has strength D so will pretty much auto annihilate anything it touches. The interesting scrap would be a Knight verses a Warhound. The Knight weighs in a significantly fewer points and would have to endure the torrent of Vulcan Mega Bolter shots but providing it got into base to base with the Titan I can see the Knight chopping its leg off and then beating the Titan to death with it.
Failing that, take two.
The Imperial Knight is a superb model. It’s not cheap and it’s not the easiest model to build but I can think of at least 5 kits from Forge World that fall into the same category and they’d cost you more. And this you’ll actually use. It’s an indulgence. A gift to you from you. And it’s absolutely bad ass on the board. Not indestructible by any means and it’s the proverbial bullet magnet but it’ll look ace whilst it gets shot to shit. It’s a triumph for Games Workshop and I don’t say that often. Is it worth the money? Honestly? Yes. I’d happily buy another. And another.
The Imperial Knight is available from Firestorm Games priced £76.50.
Being a very lucky boy, I got to review the Imperial Knight kit. So, it seemed only right and fair that I took at look at Codex Imperial Knights as well. Sure is tough being me some days…
Codex Imperial Knights is the most original codex from the Games Workshop since the introduction of the Tau back in third edition even if the content isn’t entirely original. It’s a welcome to change to be looking at something not only fresh but a facet of the Imperium that hasn’t ever been fully explained until now. That’s not to say the book doesn’t have the usual vagaries one has come to expect from the background but the ambiguity is what allows for variety on the table. Although there is perhaps less vagueness than normal in this codex. I think it’s got everything to do with the fact that the Imperial Knights occupy a very unique position within the Imperium and that needed to be explained carefully lest gamers get the wrong end of the stick.
As with all of the new codices it looks gorgeous with stunning artwork and the livery of the Knightly houses rendered in all their glory. And like most of the new codices it’s an interesting read. Whilst it’s a thin book it possesses a wealth of background about the Knights, the houses and their loyalties. It’s also an interesting twist that they seem to exist within the Imperium yet apart. They have their own laws and codes of conduct that can often lead to two houses going to war with one another. Despite the obvious loss of men and material the Imperium and the Adeptus Mechanicus seem largely fine with it. Which is amusing if not odd.
It also hints a lot about the rivalry between the Imperium and the Adeptus Mechanicus. There’s all sorts of stuff in the background and Horus Heresy books about how the Emperor engineered events so the Machine Cult would come into being, and the nice reference from Mechanicum, all go a long way to do more than the usual hints we’re used to in this book.
The rest of Codex Imperial Knights isn’t so much a let down as predictable. There’s a lot of photos. Granted they’re all way cool but 16 pages of photos in a 64 page book seems a little much. And then there’s the two entry army list. Whilst, at present, there’s only the option to build the Errant and the Paladin we know Forge World are releasing the Lancer, and there are other Knight variations. I don’t think it would have been a huge ask to include the rules for those. Hell, even if they don’t release the other variants, we’re an industrious bunch – we can and will do conversions.
That aside, there’s plenty to gush over in the Codex as well. The timeline is nicely done with lots of nice references. The galaxy map is gorgeous and it’s quite fun identifying which Knight Houses would most likely fight with which Space Marine chapters based on location. I was slightly disappointed when I found out the one nearest Ultramar painted their Knights blue. Oh for a little contrast…
As for the Imperial Knights army list (such as it is) there’s plenty to get excited about. The special rules for one thing. The list includes Fear, Hammer of Wrath, Move Through Cover, Relentless, Smash & Strikedown. Knights also get to stomp, their Reaper Chainsword gets the Destroyer special rule and to really rub salt into the wound of non-Imperial players…it also has the Invincible Behemoth special rule making it even harder to kill on top of its Ion Shields. And decent armour.
The fact that you can field them as allies or as a force in their own right is awesome the latter being done because it’s an amazing idea. Sure the Games Workshop will make a pretty penny from anyone doing it but 4 Knights is, depending on variant, comes in at 1500 points. And that right there would be a lot of fun.
I also like the fact that the Imperial Knights are allies of convenience with Grey Knights. I like to think that their mind wiping habits makes the Grey Knights dishonourable to the Knightly houses. It isn’t that, I just like to pretend.
Oh, and the Imperial Knights get Warlord Traits. Just in case they weren’t bad ass enough…
Codex Imperial Knights is a great read. Aside from the ability to take bonkers warmachines of bonkerishness (that may not be a word) it provides enough new fluff to be worth having in its own right. But the fact that it does give you the ability to field bonkers warmachines of bonkerishness just makes it all the sweeter.
Codex Imperial Knights is available from Firestorm Games priced £22.50.
Launching right after the events of its predecessor, Path of the Incubus rattles along at a frantic pace, successfully building upon themes introduced in the first novel.
Warning contains spoilers!
Things are bad in Commorragh. Really, really bad. Though the end of Path of the Warrior provided the death of the budding Daemon Lord, the damage has been done and cracks have formed in the shell that protects The Dark City from the predators of the Warp. Daemons are gathering for a feast, disjunction is imminent, and the only guys who can stop it left the city long ago.
Which leaves only the not-so-merry band of murderous sociopaths from the first book to clean up the mess whilst trying to blame it all on someone else [Sounds like most companies in Britain today. -Ed.]. So all is well then.
Path of the Incubus manages to perform the delicate balancing act of bringing periphery characters who were previously only part of the background into prominence, whilst spending a little less time with those who we got to know well in the first book but not to the detriment of the whole. The story is split into three…ahem…paths, all with different destinations, with several other sub plots spinning around them. In the hands of a lesser writer this sort of tale would collapse in on itself in a jumbled mess, but Andy Chambers keeps things all finely balanced and on tenterhooks, so we get to not only see how the many tiers of Commorragh are affected by the disjunction, but also on the wider galaxy.
Archon Yllithian is back and fighting to defend himself from daemons along with Asurbel Vect, who has begun to suspect he may have a hand in the events unfolding. The less fortunate characters are trapped fighting to ascend, and then descend, the levels of Commorragh in search of safety. Their hope? Freedom from the attentions of not only the Great Enemy, but their fellow Dark Eldar, who wish to destroy anyone who could be a vessel for daemons – and with this being the Dark City, they tend to shoot first and ask questions later.
But the real focus, carving their way through the core of the novel and into the halls of one of the greatest partnerships in fiction are Morr – a disgraced Incubi – and Motley – one of the mysterious Harlequins. Both have to travel outside the Dark City and though Morr at first seeks death, with gentle prodding from Motley, he comes to realise he can be of more use in achieving a greater goal.
The duo was the novel’s secret weapon, delivering payloads of character development into the joy centres of my brain. Every small skirmish felt important and when the important themes of the book kicked in, they felt delivered by well-rounded beings instead of just mouthpieces for the author.
It’s worth mentioning the astonishing breadth of fight scenes and locations covered too. From long dead crone worlds, sheltering from daemons in the Dark City, to the heart of a Maiden world, each fight seemed determined to try to introduce a new element to it, a new emotion for me to feel.
It’s rare for a novel to so completely improve upon its predecessor, but Path of the Incubus does that. Whilst I was a bit more disappointed by the ending of this novel compared to the last, its one of the few complaints I can have and one must assume the next book in the series will explain all.
Pick up the Dark Path series today, with the last in the trilogy out now, it’s the perfect time to acquaint yourself with the Dark Eldar.
Path of the Incubus is available from the Black Library with the Dark Eldar bundle. The individual novels and the many shorts from Andy Chambers are also available.
The below has hit the interwebs. Whilst vaguer than normal it coincides with news that rules and starter sets have been pulled from the Games Workshop website and stores. So it could mean that Warhammer 40,000 7th edition is about to hit.
There’s been plenty of rumours about the boxset contents. Blood Angels and Orks seemed to have been one that stuck around, but as always we’ll wait and see rather than guess. And we won’t have to wait for long. Time to reallocate the monthly budget methinks…
Black Library just published the third and final book of my Dark Eldar ‘path’ trilogy, Path of the Archon. I finished Path of the Archon a little over a year ago and, if I’m perfectly honest, I have been so busy with other projects that I’ve not given it much thought since. The release made me think that this is a very silly thing to do so I thought I’d like to share a few thoughts about it. 
You see although I’ve written books, games and articles a-plenty over the years (even a novel but we’ll come back to that in a bit), Path of the Archon represents the culmination of a really major solo and sustained writing effort for me. It’s like I’ve been doing sprints and relay races all my life before deciding that one of those marathon thingies would cool to try out – after all that’s just a load of sprinting put together, right? Right? Wrong. It’s been tremendous fun and an absolute honour to contribute something to the 40K universe again, but I have to confess now that I look back at it the thought of writing all those words brings me out in a bit of a cold sweat.
Why? It’s close on 400,000 words in total for the Dark Eldar trilogy once you include the short stories and a spin-off novella I wrote around it. It’s certainly given me a great deal of respect for real authorship – those guys and girls with ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty novels to their names, I salute you. Those who hold down full-time careers, raise families and write novels in their non-existent free time certainly deserve our unadulterated worship and adoration for their dedication to the written word. The key here is that you’re well and truly on your own writing a novel.
Sure an editor might make helpful suggestions, if you’re very lucky you might have friends and colleagues to point you in the right direction, but once you start you’re the only one that’ll be making all the running (dammit I used the running analogy again, sorry, I’ll stop now). Designing games is very different, you reach a consensus, slap something together that vaguely works and then change it (often a lot) based on playing it and feedback, you expand, contract and detail portions as it shapes up. You divvy up the work to make sure everyone gets to do things they’ll love while making sure that everything gets done.
Not so much with the old novel-writing as it turns out, you’ve just got a big pile of words to write, (hopefully) you’ve a story to tell and you’re off to the races (dammit!). Anyway, waah-waah, big, scary, daunting etc. I figure the best and most useful thing to bring from the experience is to talk about it and give other aspiring writers out there some ideas on how I went about it. I had some very good advice from masters of the craft like Graham McNeill, William King, Nick Kyme, Andy Hoare, Phil Kelly and Gav Thorpe (who I also had the pleasure of collaborating with on some short stories). I also read lots of the sort of writerly articles and blogs that writers link to each other (kinda like this one I guess), so you can probably see all these notions explained better in other places. The methods I ended up using are probably not the best or smartest approach in the world, but these are the ones that worked for me.
Every single time I’ve written a novel I’ve regretted not planning it out more thoroughly from the outset. To put that in perspective a little; the usual process involved first making a short, literally two or three sentence, pitch about what the novel would be about. No secrets here, no hidden reveals that come only if you read the story – the editor cares nothing for your veiled mysteries at this stage. ‘Two explorers find a mysterious ruin on planet X with a powerful artefact hidden inside. One of them turns out to be a shape-shifting alien who’s the original owner of the artefact and has manipulated the other man to help him get it back. – A clichéd sort of pitch but you get the idea. Once the pitch is approved I move on to writing a synopsis comprising an expanded summary of the story (a short paragraph or two now, based off the pitch, no more), a list of characters (just name, couple of lines of pertinent background information/personal traits/ motivations, maybe a physical characteristic or two: ‘thin-faced’ ‘wears black’ that kind of level of detail).
The meat of the synopsis is a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of what happens to who, where and when in as much or as little detail as you want – in my case at least a paragraph each. The synopsis goes back to the editor for approval and this is also a good stage to get others to take a look and tell you what they think as well. The synopsis might go back and forth several times, undergo changes, reflows, introduction of new ideas and deletion of old one. Do not despair, or be disheartened as this is all for the good. Even if your story idea is utterly brilliant and original (and it probably isn’t) it will only benefit from another pair of eyes giving it scrutiny. Observation will not rob your fledgling creation of its uniqueness and beauty, it will only prevent it turning into a self-absorbed monstrosity living in the bowels of the underearth. The plan is-all important because once you start writing you will very likely go off ‘into the weeds’ and find yourself writing about things you didn’t plan for. That’s ok and desirable and very writerly in many cases, but the synopsis is your road map/blueprint/compass for finding your way back on track.
So the plan’s in place and you make a good start knocking down thousands of words towards your goal (roughly 100,000 words for a novel, 50K for a novella and around 8K for a short story as a guide). A few days or a week in things start to slump a bit, you’ve got a dull or unpleasant part of the story to write, or you find yourself suddenly painted into a corner, or a friend came in from out-of-town, there was an earthquake or whatever. You stop writing for a bit and then writing becomes a chore as you struggle to start back up again and find your focus and enthusiasm for it. Repeat ad nauseam. The first novel I wrote, a novel based in the Necromunda setting called Survival Instinct often became mired this way and took far longer to complete than it should.
While I actually kind of like the story and characters some parts of it are a chore to read basically because they were a chore to write. For me the only answer to this has been to have a daily/weekly and monthly word target to work towards – ‘it’s done when it’s done’ doesn’t work for me, I need a sense of progression. So targets of 1500 words/day, 7500 words/week, 30,000 words/month is what I work to. For a proper writer these are laughably easy goals. You can write 10,000 words in a day if you’re minded to, but the point here is consistency and a big slice of tortoise and the hare mentality. I often struggle even to write 1500 words a day (pathetic, I know) but having daily/weekly/monthly counts stops me from getting to the end of three months and finding I’ve got less than a third of the novel actually written. It also provides a useful stick to beat myself with to stop navel-gazing and rewriting the same paragraph sixty billion times.
I wrote the Dark Eldar trilogy over the course of three years so perforce there was a break in between writing each novel. Looking back at it I can only feel that this was a good thing for the maturation of both the story and my ability to write it. The time helped mature the plotline and stories in my head while topping up the idea tanks. When it comes to ‘where do you get your ideas from?’ the answer is that I steal them. I steal them from history books, I steal them from fiction and movies or from things that happen in everyday life. Note that I’m talking about stealing here, not copying. I always remember Bill King telling me a supposed quote from Picasso: ‘Students copy, artists steal.’ That always sounded very apt to me, because copying an inspiration is simply reproducing it faithfully, but stealing it is about making it yours. As well as conscious theft I’ve found that input influences output, so if I read books about a subject that subject will infuse what I’m writing about almost in a sort of Brownian motion of ideas (WTFf is that? Go here.). In other words to make the Dark Eldar feel like an ancient, entitled, treacherous aristocracy I read about thing like ancient Greece and Rome, Alexander the Great, the Assyrian Empire. I especially recommend Plutarch’s ‘Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans’ if you’re looking for that kind of thing, as well as Arrian’s ‘Conquests of Alexander’. These are good because the ancient writers were obsessed with the past like we, in the modern age, are obsessed by the future. Plutarch and Arrian believed that everything that man needed to know was revealed by the actions of their glorious antecedents – a very fitting mentality for any writer engaging with the 40K universe.
One of the nice things about writing a Black Library novel is that you get to put a dedication in the front of it. All of my dedications include my wife, Jessica, because she’s had the infinite tolerance to read my half-finished works and give me feedback on them, as well as proofreading the final text. I can’t begin to say how important that was for me, every writer should be their own worst critic and having another pair of eyes to reassure you that things don’t completely suck is really important. That doesn’t guarantee my novels don’t suck by the way, you might hate them, but my wife loves me and she’s a good enough liar that she convinced me to keep going and actually finish them. After Jessica there was also Nick Kyme at Black Library, the hard-pressed editor of a dozen other tales, who gave me more feedback and called me out when things got too hand-wavey or simply didn’t make sense. Once again, the writing part is very solitary, but a story matures under scrutiny. There’s a natural shyness about showing work to people you know, especially when you may feel it’s unfinished. Crush that queasy sensation unmercifully. The danger is not that the people you know will be too cruel, it’s that they’ll be too kind.
Aftermath
Looking back at writing my first trilogy the thing that surprises me most (aside from actually having done it) is that it’s also a snapshot of a period of my life. There’s a scene featuring Asdrubael Vect haranguing his Archons set against a backdrop of a mighty storm shaking the city of Commorragh to its foundations. I wrote that in a hotel room in Indiana on the night before Phil Kelly’s wedding as a deadly storm passed overhead and the place shook to its foundations. Path of the Incubus includes a lot of wandering the webway, lost and homeless, for two of the protagonists. That coincides with the point when me and Jessica moved back from the US and were trying to find our feet back in the UK. The storm scene was conscious inspiration, the wandering about was me unconsciously acting things out in words. Brownian motion again, I guess.
Finally (and forgive me this has got way too long, booyah if you made it this far) a hoary old adage that I keep coming back to is worthy of a mention here. The story goes like this; A man a man enters a medieval town and sees some people hard at work. He asks the first person what they are doing. ‘I’m hauling rocks’ comes the reply. He asks the second the same question. ‘I’m making a wall,’ comes the reply. He asks the third person, who’s gazing up into the empty air and apparently doing nothing what they are doing. ‘I’m building a cathedral,’ comes the reply. As well as old style dead tree varieties (all with gorgeous covers by Neil Roberts) Black Library now publishes all my Dark Eldar trilogy stories together in a single eBundle.
For my first article as resident painting bloke, I thought it would be best to do a tutorial on how I did the flames on my Imperial Knights! I took these to Throne of Skulls in March and I was lucky enough so be selected as one of the best looking eight armies. Below is the picture of my four knights for the purposes of this tutorial we will focus on the traditional flame colours. This tutorial can be applied to a range of different colours as you can see by the lead green knight.
Okay so all the pictures below are done with the top plate as this will give us a nice surface to play around with the technique.
The tools you will need for achieving this are:
1. Airbrush and Compressor
2.Black Primer (for the initial basecoat)
3. 1 Plasticard sheet
4. Scissors
5. A dark grey colour, light grey colour, white, red, yellow and finally orange (personally I use a mixture of Vallejo and Minitaire paints).
So the plasticard and the scissors are the first pieces you will need to cut out two templates. One template must be cut into a wave and the other cut into tear drops of different sizes as seen below.
You can buy templates like this online but it’s just as easy to make your own, the plasticard will swell after time but you can just make new ones by doing it this way. I did all four knights with this set and they just about need replacing.
Now we want to start with your dark grey colour and we need to position the template with the rounded section at the very base of the front of the base plate. Set your compressor to around 25 psi as this will give you more control as we need to go around the edge of the template. Keep the template still and carefully go around the edges aim for just inside the template then if you accidentally spray more paint it wont be too bad! Keep moving around the piece until you get an effect such as this.
While you’ve got this colour in the airbrush go over all the pieces in a similar fashion you want to have this effect on.
Next comes the wave piece we cut out, we want to use this piece to give our original pattern a bit more of a flowing feel so go to the edges and pull the grey back in as we shall see in the next picture.
Now after we’ve done this we need to go back to our original template and get the lighter grey and we want to edge highlight our original pattern. Now, the key is to try to not to overlap the original darker grey too much. Try and keep this quite fine but don’t worry about doing it absolutely everywhere. You should get a finish similar to this…..
At this point you might be losing a little bit of faith that we are heading in the right direction but fear not were about to start bringing the panel to life! Granted it doesn’t look much look a flame at the minute so let’s add some red. Personally I use Vallejo Scarlet Red here and you want to put a thin layer over the whole piece. If you put too much of a coat on here you will obscure our hard work so far so remember keep it light and go for multiple coats if you need to.
So lets add that red colour:
So the first red coat is on and it’s looking a bit more flamey. As we’ve tried using the templates once already so let’s do it again. Add the light grey again using our teardrop template and our wave template. Don’t worry about the positioning just put it wherever you like just like the first layer.
Don’t worry about covering your hard work so far as we are about to take it to another level! Now it’s time to use our orange colour and again like we did with the red we want to apply a thin coat over the whole piece again.
Now were getting somewhere! The flames are starting to pop now. Don’t worry about the shine the paint will give the piece as we can add a Matt Varnish here later on to protect our hard work and to dull the shine, personally I use Army Painter Matt Varnish.
For the next step we want to use our white and very carefully add some highlights to our orange section. As you can see on the right hand side I got a bit trigger happy and put far too much white down. We can quickly solve this by just repeating the above steps though. Don’t add too much white as we don’t want too much showing through so a similar amount to what I added in my next photo and you will be fine. Of course all tastes are different so don’t take my guide as gospel experiment your self and see what happens.
I like to use the wave template at an angle roughly 45 degrees and spray a very fine coat near your highlights at this stage it looks like we’ve ruined it slightly but the steps are really simple so you can just redo them if you don’t like the results.
After the white highlights we need to take our final colour which is yellow and again like the red and orange add a thin layer all over the piece to achieve a finish like this.
So as we can see I wasn’t happy with the excess white so I re-sprayed it black and started again this only took a few minutes to do another new layer. As the layers are really thin with an airbrush you don’t have to worry about clogging the detail too much.
Have a play around to get a finish you like, if you think the yellow is too bright then use the light grey again instead of the white as this will give it more of a subtle look.
One last picture is one of the knights in the cabinet on the second day of Throne to give you a complete look at the finished model. When you add all the pieces together you will then get more of a striking model. This technique can be used on all sorts of models.
I hope you enjoyed my first article and I hope you found this article informative. Don’t be scared to give this a go as you can see each step is quite simple but gives a completely different finish.
Thanks for reading,
- Mark
Following some mysterious trailers and the promise of the 24th of May being a significant release date in the Warhammer 40,000 schedule there are now some leaked White Dwarf images for us to pore over and, judging by the state of Twitter, get in a bit of a tizzy over.
You’ve no doubt seen them already, but just in case you haven’t, here they are:
Much of the furore has been around the comments surrounding the Force Organisation Chart which, apparently, can FOC off in the new edition (it’s called ‘Battle-forged now anyway), if you want it to with the introduction of what are described as ‘unbound’ armies. Of course lots of ‘jumping to conclusions’ has inevitably ensued. We do like to have a good cathartic rage out about these things don’t we? I remember when flyers were the death of 40K, then it was lord of war choices, etc. etc. – judging by the sales of Imperial Knights and Imperial Guard Astra Militarum models, there are plenty of people out there still enjoying playing the game… Still I digress, battle-forged/unbound is the point under discussion here.
For me, whatever the end result of armies appearing on the tabletop, most of the internet is missing the big picture here, Games Workshop has just handed all 40K players and tournament organisers a ridiculously easy way to restrict some of the crazier combinations that the unbound choices may allow (it’s important to note that unlike some people have been suggesting, this will not lead to armies of 20 riptides rushing at you and all you get is some poxy ‘bonus’ for being battle-forged – unit count restrictions and NEW allies restrictions will still need to be considered). How so, I hear you ask. Well, it goes like this. You are arranging a game with a friend and you say “are we playing battle-forged or unbound armies?”, your friend replies “I fancy battle-forged this time”, you say “OK”. Job done. Tournament organisers can follow the same approach, simply stating “Battle-forged lists only”, if they wish. That’s all I’ve got to say on it before I actually see some proper rules from the actual rule book, but it feels to me as though Games Workshop might have handed us an easy way to choose whether we want to play normal or crazy-ass 40K and to state that clearly before any game we play.
There’s a new allies matrix promised as well, which I think could be one of the more interesting additions in this edition, as it gives GW a chance to tidy up some of the mismatched advantages that some allied forces obtained in 6th, and which were the bane of many a tournament player in recent times. Obviously we don’t have any details yet, but I’m hoping that allied forces as a whole will be less beneficial to both sides of the ally relationship, especially with the new psychics phase in play (I can see a shift towards Warhammer Fantasy ally rules coming), but we shall see.
It also appears that we’ve got a brand new (or not so new, depending on how long you’ve played 40K for) dedicated psychics phase, utilising the tried and trusted approach found in Warhammer. The more astute amongst have already suggested that this is an example of ‘rules alignment’ to encourage, in the same vein as Privateer Press do with their Warmachine/Hordes formats, cross fertilisation between Games Workshop’s two main games. There’s also the promise of two new disciplines available to all (except Tyranids, who as we all know don’t mess around with the warp for their psychics): Daemonology. It sounds as though the two flavours it has ‘Santic’ and ‘Malefic’ may have a banishment/summoning mechanic within them and the side bar that you can’t quite read in the second image tells the tale of a Space Marine Librarian, reduced to his final wound and desperate to turn back the Tyranid tide, summons forth a Bloodthirster to do his bidding… Now I know to many this is anathema to the way of the Space Marine, but (and it’s a big but), don’t forget that the current trend in 40K is about the narrative, and there are plenty of novels and bits of fluff around that describe desperate times being the downfall of many a Space Marine on their fall to chaos.
We’re all getting minty fresh breath! Oh, wait, no I got that wrong again. Tactics. They’re changing through the introduction of Tactical Objective cards alongside the standard missions we know and love and it looks like we’ll about to get about a billion (or so) options based on the myriad of combinations that they offer. This feels like a bit of a gift to tournament organisers to me (yes, I said it, GW helping out tournaments!) as tournaments often use secret objectives and so on to spice up the standard missions and this way they can draw those from a pool of well-established and universally understood options, rather than thinking up their own, trying to word them in an easy to understand way and explain them to players, etc. It will also mean that people will be less resentful of the in-game effect that secret missions or tournament objectives can have, as they’ll be standard fare and everyone will be used to playing with them in hand and being on the look out for the ones their opponent might be attempting to achieve.
Anyway, those are my ramblings on what’s now known about what is (almost certainly) definitely Warhammer 40,000 7th edition. I’m enthused for it all (I’m a fairly enthusiastic chap in general when it comes to hobby, to be honest!) and I’m looking forward to the 24th to get my sticky mits on the latest edition of 40K. There’s obviously change afoot, but my impression thus far is that it’s change to allow narrative gamers to play even more narratively (I’m sure that’s a real word) and tournament players to have more established ways to standardise their games. Of course we don’t actually know anything yet, and that’s important to bear in mind, but there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful!
- rob
In just 8 days time Warhammer 40,000 7th Edition will be unleashed on the world. Coming in at £50 the standard edition rulebook is actually three books grouped together in a pretty sleeve. The books being divided into hobby, background and rules. 
Whilst I balked slightly at the price tag I’m delighted about the splitting of the rules and rather suggests that Games Workshop have been looking at the other games companies and taking on board customer feedback. Gamers no longer have to choose between a tiny rule book without all the cool shit or a whale killer of a tome when they go to a mates house or to a tournament.
The styling is a big departure from what we’ve come to expect from a 40k rulebook. It’s much more contemporary and almost feels like a luxury graphic novel. This isn’t a complaint, I like how uncomplicated it all is and how the artwork (aside from being lovely) ties in nicely with the single heroic character of the codex covers.
And for those with more money than sense. Or so much money they need not care (I’ll have some if it’s going spare), the Munitorum Edition weighs in at £200. It comes with the three main books (although the rulebook is A5 size) and the Visions of the Dark Millennium book which is £45 by itself. There’s also some exclusive decks of cards. I’m struggling to see where the £200 goes as whilst the books are nicely produced, the carry box is cardboard and can’t account for £80 of the cost. It does look cool though.
Warhammer 40,000 7th edition is available to pre-order from the Games Workshop and independent stockists.
With their name changed for reasons unknown, or at least unconfirmed *cough* copyright *cough*, here comes the Star Army – or Astra Militarum in High Gothic. Or just the plain old Imperial Guard to those of us who will always know them as such (it even says so on the title page).
We’re mostly all familiar with the new format Codex’s so I’ll just say it’s on par with the best of them. The artwork is beautiful, it’s full colour (although I still reserve my love for the monochrome inks) and top quality throughout, everything you expect from the hardbacks.
I’ve been quite looking forward to seeing what [insert name here as Games Workshop won’t tell you anymore] has done for the Imperial Guard as I wasn’t a big fan of the last codex, I don’t know why. Maybe because it was crap (in my humble opinion). Specifically, I didn’t like how the orders worked – the 6” range for Platoon Command squads was just unworkable,Vox Casters didn’t give you extra range to issue orders which just seemed plain stupid to me. Seeing as how the orders system was supposed to be the Imperial Guard’s ‘thing’, I didn’t feel like it was executed properly as it wasn’t inclusive of most of the list, and forced you to either play in a very limited way, always take Ursarker Creed, or join the Valkyrie party like everyone else who wanted to occasionally win a game.
So addressing the orders first, you’ll be happy to know they have changed for the better – not perfect, but definitely better. It’s a blanket 12” range for everyone now unless stated in a special rule – and this can be extended out to 18” through the Warlord Trait table. The Imperium can send a message trillions of miles across the galaxy, but still can’t send one from one side of the battlefield to the other, so Vox Casters still don’t affect range – granting you the re-roll to the leadership test for the order to be carried out instead. There are more orders now for total of nine – three of which are still for senior officers only, defined with an additional special rule over the new ‘Voice of Command’ one which is what enables you to issue orders in the first place. But a few of the old orders have gone (like go to ground) so a lot of the list is actually new – and also better accommodates things like Storm Troopers, I mean Storm Army, I mean Militarum Tempestus. Damn copyright.
The Storm Troopers have changed considerably, now taken as elite platoons in the same way as standard infantry, with the officer able to issue orders to them and so actually including them in the whole army ‘thing’ this time round whereas before they just…weren’t really. This is a good thing as it removes some of the reliance on the Valkyries as it becomes difficult to move an entire platoon around in flyers and is not really feasible points wise now the Valkyrie/Vulture points cost has gone up massively – which it needed to, as they were a bit too good. And this leads into the primary reason for the new Rhinox Transport coming into being: it’s a cheap, heavily gunned transport able to negotiate difficult terrain – essentially a poor troopers Valkyrie on tracks – and now the go to method of moving around your expensive Storm Troopers without inviting the dangers of deep strike. It’s also worth noting Storm Troopers have now lost their Hellpistols and so are significantly worse in the assaults they often find themselves in, what with being so daring and everything. I’m unsure of the reasoning behind this, but the cynic in me is looking at the Ogryn shaped other new kit that came out and is now the only unit which can actually do anything in an assault without placing your Command units in harm’s way. Which is a shame because, for as much as Storm Troopers had a definite lean towards shooting, they are still supposed to be special forces bad asses who could mix it up in an assault too.
A big plus is the addition of Tank Commanders, enabling you to do proper armoured companies with Veteran Grenadiers mounted in Chimera’s still acting as your troops. The tank orders, whilst not amazing, encourage you to race your Leman Russ’ around the board terrifying your opponent, which sounds fun. But while this is good if you are doing an armoured company, it may not be so desirable if you’re sticking with some footsloggers. The orders also revolve around taking squadrons of tanks which again, is something that would typically appeal to armoured companies over everything else – in short, standard Tank Commanders only makes sense if you’re doing an armoured company. Everyone else can take Knight Commander Pask –who’s got even better, and cheaper, and he now has an effect on the type of tank he’s riding in (whilst also clearing up any ambiguity over what he could ride in for the pedantic souls amongst us). Take him with an Executioner and you can fire a single large blast instead 3 small ones, or give a Punisher Rending? Yes please, thank you very much, don’t mind if I do, much obliged….you get the picture, he’s cool. Very cool.
The Paskinator – now with added Rending
Some of the Tanks have got cheaper (although a couple did go up a bit too), most notably the aforementioned Executioner – which I’m guessing is to compensate for the fact it tends to glance itself to death with the inevitable overheats that come from firing three plasma cannons a turn. But at least that can part pay for Pask, and then if you’re only firing a single large blast the chances are even slimmer.
Conscripts also made it onto the reduced points list and are now very cheap – presumably in line with the Chaos Cultists who are identical. This makes horde armies more appealing now and if you can get your Commissar ‘Voice of Command’ via two of the Warlord Traits they can issue orders to them too – as long as they are your only HQ choice that is, which is a nice bit of character making its way back into the list. And I think that’s where the book triumphs, it brings the character of the army back and away from the special characters you were forced to take previously. There are of course casualties in doing this (poor Marbo) and it will never have the full flavour of a list dedicated to each world (still a possibility?), but it’s enough for you to generally field the army you want in the way you want.
The book is a big improvement on its predecessor. The unit choices are generally cheaper and work better with each other, giving you a little more flexibility in what is an otherwise clunky army. The improved order system keeps the flavour of the army intact and rewards you for holding your nerve and timing them right for maximum effect. It’s methodical, organised death – just the way the Imperial Guard should be.
Codex Astra Militarum is available from Firestorm Games priced £27.00.
-Lee
The latest Forge World bulletin didn’t have much in the way of news I care about…until I got to this shot. The Gal Vorbak have always interested me intensely when reading the Horus Heresy novels featuring the Bearers of the Word. And, by extension, I’d always hoped they’d do models and hoped further still that they’d do them justice as I’ve never been a fan of the possessed models available for Chaos Space Marines.
Judging by these two gems I think they’re in safe hands. I love how the MKIV armour has been incorporated into the mutations. The reversed jointed lugs are inspired. It all likes like the changes would have been agonising, which they were. I’m finding my eye wandering towards Codex Chaos Space Marines…
The Lord Inquisitor has been in development for a loooooooooong time. Mainly because Games Workshop agreed to let the fan based project live but only with Aaron Demski-Bowden writing the script. So having thrown out the old script so it went back to a blank piece of paper.
So here’s the new trailer with no odd artefact and shaky voice over.
So this is pretty. I don’t know if it’s pretty enough for me to investigate playing the game but heck, anything with a CGI Space Marine in it still gets my vote.
Holy fucking shit!
I couldn’t care less what this game is about – this trailer looks immense. And finally gives tell to why Dark Angels were the first army I properly collected as a young hobbyist.
However, I’ve been a good boy and looked into it and oh my poor pants. Space Hulk: Deathwing will be a first person shooter available on the XBox One.
I’ll be watching this one very closely because it has the potential to be incredible. Or a miserable pile of shit like all the other Space Hulk shooters that have preceded it.
Graphics aside, because it is pre-alpha, this so far looks like the Space Marine multiplayer. Which I personally thought sucked. One must assume there’s going to be some plot and many places to explore.
But right now here’s some poorly rendered Space Marines having fisty cuffs with some poorly rendered Chaos Space Marines…
Now I’m the first person to admit that I’m a little out of touch with the 7th edition release. One minute there was no new box set and a rulebook with Dark Angels on the sleeve and now a new boxset with Space Wolves and Orks, putting lie to the persistent rumour that the box set would contain Blood Angels. Well done Games Workshop, you’ve finally managed to hoodwink us.
So here’s this new boxset with an add on campaign book which effectively catapults the start up costs from a fairly steep £75 to a stomach churning £105. Just a frame of reference – the second edition boxset from 21 years ago cost £40 with roughly the same amount of plastic. That’s an 87% increase in price. Granted it’s at least an 87% increase in quality of models but that’s still very rich tea.
Looking at the boxset whilst it may not wow many compared to the previous two boxsets, it’s actually not bad in terms of relative value. Grumbling above aside. By my sums there’s roughly £134.50 worth of toys in there, plus the slim rulebook. Which makes it fairly good value verses its price tag – if we ignore the over inflated prices in the first place. Oh and it’s just about legal on both sides for a change.
I also love the Space Wolves captain model. Many may not remember the cover art to the third edition Space Wolves codex or the Forge World display piece that was made of him, but I most certainly do.
It’s great to see the old boy still fighting the good fight with nothing more than a little less hair, one less eye and a lot more trophies…
So 7th Edition has been unleashed upon the world. I’d like to say that I was eagerly anticipating its release but if I’m honest I felt fairly indifferent about the whole thing. Mainly because I do my best to avoid rumours and I really hate the way Games Workshop give people a week’s notice to find £50.
Of course to avoid all the rumours flying around concerning 7th Edition I’d have to delete my social media accounts, not talk to any of my friends and quite possibly move somewhere fairly far away and possibly underground. The persistent rumour was that it would be Blood Angels and not Space Wolves joining Orks in the new boxset. Another was that there wouldn’t be a boxset at all. Well done Games Workshop you finally got one over on us.
In a way I’m quite glad I ignored the rumours because when 7th Edition finally came out I had the opportunity to be surprised by a book I’d already owned 5 times previously. And that was quite a novel feeling. Of course the main change is that the Games Workshop have heeded the cries of its customers and split the book into three – hobby, fluff and rules. This is welcome news for gamers – particularly tournament gamers – who no longer have to lug around a chuffing heavy book with them wherever they go. They are also stunning to look at. It’s a real departure from the traditional with this iteration. It has new type faces, bold colour block, new stylised aquilas and groovy new art up the whazoo. Plus some of the best pieces from the previous edition. The books feel cyberpunk rather than sci-gothic which is actually a pretty clever. For the first time it feels like a work talking a bout the universe rather than a document from the universe. Which I think makes it far more relate-able for those who just want to paint some toys or play some games, not go balls deep into the fluff. And breaking it into three makes it more digestible. But, for me, harder to get into. Mainly because I do my reading in snatched hours so as I finished one part I was usually nowhere near the others.
A Galaxy of War – the hobby book – is, for me, a huge indulgence. It’s padded to hell and basically a hardback version of Warhammer Visions which is a bit poor. Lots of full page or double page photos which are totally unnecessary. It could be half the thickness, still look good and make just as much contribution to your hobby. I suspect it was thickened up because it would rather put lie to the principle that the wargaming is divided into three equal parts – painting/modelling, gaming and background. There are some new and pretty good hobby articles in there which is very refreshing considering the last couple of iterations have been rehashes of the ones before them. And it’s also cool to see a proper article about collecting an army and giving it some personality. It has nothing to with it being Ultramarines by the way. Although it’s nice to see Captain ‘Angryman’ Agemman getting some love considering he’s contributed almost as much to the Codex Astartes as Marneus Calgar. It’s the first hobby section in a while that I can see a seasoned gamer actually taking the trouble to read. I can’t promise they won’t get bored by the huge amounts of wasted space but at least there’s some value to it. Especially with the changes to the Citadel paint range in the last couple of years.
The book I was looking forward to most, it’s no surprise, was Dark Millennium – the background book – but it was the one that disappointed the most. Now I’ve been immersed in the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium for the best part of 25 years so I’m aware that the Imperium is not a happy or easy place to live but this book was so utterly bleak to the extent that when I reached the timeline I was questioning what the point of playing any more. In the past there was always an element of hope. Yes humanity was besieged on all sides and the outlook was grim but through strength or arms and sacrifice humanity had a chance. That has been replaced with a bludgeoning hopelessness that does beg the question why anyone would bother. And it lacks finesse. There’s no ambiguity which was always Games Workshop’s strength over its competitors. Everything was myth and legend and open to interpretation. Debating the background has always been a bit of a hobby within a hobby for me. 7th Edition just seems to be a bit…factual. Not bad by any chalk just factual. But I suppose that does tie in with the idea that this is a book about the 41st Millennium rather than a book from the 41st Millennium. Some aspects of Imperial society have been nicely fleshed out – the Imperial Knights being slotted in for one – but it does get a tad repetitive. And if you’re anyone but a lapdog of the Emperor then you may not enjoy this book because 88 pages of the 128 pages is given over to the Imperium. Granted it’s been padded with the usual large pieces of artwork but still. The Eldar – one of the most important players in a galaxy gone mad gets two pages. And that’s split between Dark Eldar and full fat Eldar. There’s a fair few pages about Chaos but even that is Imperium-centric. I stress it’s not a bad read but the old guard, those few of us that are left, may find it a bit of a direction shift.
And finally the rules themselves. I’ve heard more than a few people call 7th Edition Warhammer 40,000 v2.1 and with good reason as it seems to have tightened up the rules that have been evolving since third edition and added in some of the best bits of 2nd Edition. They started in the previous version with Over Watch and the like but that face that unbound armies are back is very welcome indeed because for the first time since I collected it, I can now use my Ultramarines 1st Company without borrowing rules from another army. This is joyous news. There’s other big changes like a dedicated psychic phase bringing it back in line with Warhammer having spent 16 years making it different. There’s little rule tweaks particularly around cover and line of sight. There’s clarifications around Over Watch and a raft of other things. But most importantly: vehicles don’t suck any more. There’s been no real rule changes other than to damage table. As I said in my review of 6th Edition the studio completely failed to notice that mid strength rapid firing weapons – like assault cannons – had become the most valuable in the game because they could glance vehicles to death. Whilst this is still true, they no longer can get a lucky kill in on a penetrating hit. The only way you can now outright destroy a vehicle is if you have a weapon that’s designed to do the job. Which. Makes. Sense. Suddenly lascannons and multimeltas are worth taking again. The best lesser weapons can hope for is to destroy weapons or immobilise them. A lot of effort has gone into the ‘gaming’ aspect, specifically scenarios and missions. Taking the throwaway after thought that was the 6th edition offering and making it a clear and digestible and, most importantly, good. The woeful, soul crushing, miserable Compendium of Special Rules has been thrown out in favour of something logical – rules grouped together by type. It actually means you can find rules too. Which is novel.
Overall the 7th Edition of the Warhammer 40,000 rules feel the tightest they’ve been…um…ever. The books are gorgeous and aside from sterility in the background it’s a strong offering from Games Workshop. The flyers are still over powerered – the Heldrake still being mental – and the fact that there’s still millions of special rules, however nicely they’ve been organised, means it can still frustrate but it’s not enough to put me off.
It’s been a long journey since 3rd Edition hit the shelves back in 1998 and it’s actually been fascinating watching that rule set evolve and see some of the facets of 2nd make a return. Not all the changes have been well received but then again you can’t please all the people all the time. I think there’s probably another iteration (or two) to go before Warhammer 40,000 hits that sweet spot where everything is working in harmony but for now I’d 7th Edition is pretty close.
For me the consideration that’s gone into the small details is what makes it good. Clarifying small but significant sentences cuts down rule flicking, arguing and prevents anyone from feeling hard done by when they lose the inevitable roll off. It’s just a far more well rounded offering and feels more robust because of it. It’s the first time in a while that I’ve felt confident in the rules I’m reading.
The Warhammer 40,000 7th Edition rules is available from Firestorm Games priced £45.00.
