40k rumourmill!

Hey everybody!
It’s been a glorious day off for me today, and while I was ostensibly working on my degree, I’ve unsurprisingly found the time to go trawling the internet for the usual round of gaming news and the like! (I have actually been working on the degree, so there is that!) There seems to be a lot of 40k rumours doing the rounds right now, though, and I’ve been getting very excited reading some of these things on the usual sites, so thought I’d ramble here for a bit!

While we all know about Magnus coming back as a demon primarch, it hasn’t been particularly clear as to when he will be coming out. Well, it turns out that the upcoming (and much-anticipated) part two of Warzone Fenris will be showcasing the demon prince Magnus, alongside his psyker sons at the end of November. Seems like there was possibly an element of irony in having this year’s Horus Heresy boxed game having the Burning of Prospero storyline, then?

(As a side note, I really hope I can say “this year’s Horus Heresy boxed game” for a long time to come!)

I didn’t actually get the first Fenris supplement, as I really have no interest in the Space Wolves. I’m now feeling a bit gutted by that error, of course, but not enough to attempt to scour ebay for a copy yet, anyway!

I’m not particularly excited for the demon primarchs coming out, insofar as I’m not chomping at the bit to get any of them. Except maybe Fulgrim, depending on how that one turns out…

It looks like it might not be just the demon primarchs who are on their way, however, as Traitor’s Hate is just the tip of the iceberg for what is to come with the Warhammer 40k storyline! In the run-up to the much-reported 8th edition, currently rumoured for release April-June next year, the 13th Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler will be cutting a bloody swath towards Terra, presumably resplendent in new miniature format. His current mini, while suitably imposing, is nevertheless going to be left behind really quickly in these new developments…

Alongside the demons, loyalist primarchs will also be turning up, which will be an interesting development, I’m sure! I’ll look forward to Roboute Guilliman healing himself, of course, and I may even pick up Lion el’Johnson once he wakes up, but I don’t know about any of the others yet. Of course, this talk of returning primarchs doesn’t make everyone entirely happy, as some of the primogenitors are well and truly dead. No Sanguinius, no Horus, no Ferrus Manus… I wonder if they have plans to get around that somehow…

The other big news coming in the run-up to 8th edition is that there will be more Imperial sub-factions, which is exciting to hear as it should be spear-headed by the plastic Sisters of Battle that everybody is so keen to have in the game! Well, nearly everybody… I’ve read other ideas that include the Adeptus Arbites, which could be really exciting if we get the Judge Dredd vibe on the tabletop! Of course, the Arbites are more like the police than the army, so their place in a formal battleground seems a bit wonky to me.

However, if 8th edition puts more emphasis on narrative games, then I can totally see a purpose to creating this army. I’d also like to hope it might mean a focus on small-scale games that could develop on from Kill Team, but I suppose that could be more of a wishlist-type thing. I’m all for diversity in the game, though, and would love to have a group of Arbites allies for my space marines!

Imperial sub-factions are great, but how about seeing more non-Imperial stuff? Small-scale xenos releases would no doubt be more difficult to pull off, of course – unless in a manner of an extension to things like the Kroot, making them allies to pre-existing races. Will we ever see a huge explosion of a new race like the Tau into the game? Only time will tell, I suppose.

In the middle of all of this, of course, I’m quietly waiting for an update to the Necron Warriors sculpt, which is just awfully dated in comparison with the rest of the line…

So anyway, it looks like a lot of exciting things are happening in the 40k universe, and I can’t wait to see what happens in 2017! In the meantime, however, I’m going to head over to the new Warhammer Community website, which has gone live today and, at first glance, looks totally great!