Oh man, this was an exciting one! Four days of previews that are really pretty great, for so many in the hobby. Let’s try to break down some of the new stuff and see what’s coming our way in the next few months!
To start with, Chaos is back on the menu! We’re getting a lot of new Cultist varieties, including a ten-man squad, a sort of command squad, and mutant cultists of various stripes. Delightful! There’s also going to be new Possessed, which will presumably be accompanied by the Chosen and the Warpsmith when the big release comes.
Oh yeah, and there’s also gonna be a new Daemon Prince!
Points values will be made available for free, but the upcoming Chapter Approved will be tinkering with the rules, specifically around command points, and giving everyone new secondary objectives. There has been some outcry about why CA is coming out when armies like the Guard still don’t have their Codex, which I think is pretty valid, but 9th edition has been so strange to me, I suppose I’m not really surprised.
World Eaters will be getting a Codex, too, but it’s too soon to show off any new models. And the new Squats are getting a trike, which people seem to be excited for. I’m still underwhelmed with the Squat news – I’m happy for those players who have wanted this to happen, of course! I’m just happy, also, that I don’t feel the need to get any!
Next up, we have Age of Sigmar! Leaks from the Slaves to Darkness book have been on Facebook for about a week already, but it’s great to see these big lads in high definition glory! There’s a new Skaven model coming out, and Sylvaneth are getting a lot more new models!
This has been quite a surprise, to me. Seems like each iteration of the game grows this army, and they’re getting further away from their Wood Elf origins. It’s great to see, and I think I’ll need to exercise some restraint because Sylvaneth are an army that I really would love to try out. I mean, the Treelord mini is one of my absolute favourite sculpts of all time!
Big news from AoS is that Cities of Sigmar will be getting what I suppose we’re now calling “the Battle Sisters treatment”, and there will be updates for the redesign online. Could be interesting…
Big news in Specialist Games comes once more from the Squats, as we’ll be getting them in a new gang of Ironhead Squat Prospectors. Interesting, seems like 2022 is going to be the year of the space dwarf.
The next Kill Team box has been announced, Moroch, and will be Phobos Marines vs Traitor Guard, with the new Sector Frontieris terrain! I’m unsure about this one, as I don’t want the Marines, and I already have the ogryn and commissar models from their release in Blackstone Fortress, so I’m thinking that I might sit this one out. That terrain is, of course, wonderful, but given that they split these boxes up eventually anyway, I think I might just wait.
It does look tempting, though!
New logo and new location for Warcry, as we head into a cursed jungle for what many seem to think will be a soft version two. I’m not sure about the jungle, because I personally love the aesthetic of fighting in these abandoned cities (or mines!) and can’t really see that translating well. I’m prepared to be wrong, of course!
We also have a new warband preview – the Horns of Hashut – which is odd because it feels like they’re half of the suspected new box… We also have the centaur dude who looks pretty great – I hope this is going to mean we get more unique crazy sculpts for these sort of mercenary allies as time goes on!
I have to say, though, I’m disappointed to hear that the new setting is going to bring with it more AoS races “to the fore”. I don’t think Warcry is good when we have just any old fantasy race; I much prefer it as a Chaos vs Chaos game. Don’t get me wrong, I know why they’re doing it, and adding in the whole AoS catalogue has probably kept interest in the game to the point where we’ve been able to have so much amazing content for it. But I really preferred it when we were seeing bespoke, weird Chaos warbands unique for this game…
The final day, yesterday, brought the big news about Horus Heresy 2.0 that has been teased and spoiled and goodness knows what for a long while now. We’re getting a new box set, which is huge, and new MkVI marines. New plastic tanks, and a slew of plastic weapons upgrades to try to muscle in on people who have been 3D printing their own. It’s an interesting move, and I wonder if they’ll start to do these kinds of weapons packs for other armies, giving Kabalite Warriors a second blaster, etc? It’ll be interesting to see whether these Necromunda-style upgrades have any traction into 40k, anyway. Without being a Heresy aficionado, however, the final day was otherwise a bit of a whimper, to me.
But it was definitely an exciting few days, and here’s hoping that I am the lucky one to win everything they’ve previewed here!! 🤣
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Do you know if Warcry and Beastgrave share the same sort of setting within AoS? I have not been able to get into AoS at all, but have a Beastgrave novella in the works stil to listen too.
I think AoS is kinda confusing, and I gave up on trying to get into the novels a long time ago! Might try again at some point, though…
As I understand it, there are 8 realms which correspond to the old 8 Winds of Magic from the Old World, and Beastgrave is from the realm of beasts (naturally 🤣) Warcry is set in the land between all the realms though, which used to be called the Allpoints but, when Archaon corrupted it to Chaos, it got renamed the Eightpoints and is a war-torn land where all the people left there fight for the attention of Archaon.
This “new edition” of Warcry might be moving into a new realm though, not sure about that just yet though…
Oh damn. I am so far behind then.
Oh man, this was a good one! Chaos, Necromunda and Warcry? What more could anyone want!
The addition of the Squat miners to Necromunda pleases me, at least in part because it’s another new gang straight out of the gate. I want to see new vehicles for all the houses (I mean, if we’re going to do vehicles let’s do it properly) but I was a little concerned that it would be similar to the House of… series and we’d not seen any new gangs for a year or so. Funnily enough most of my excitement about seeing new Squats for 40k was because I wanted to use them to make a Squat gang for Necromunda. I think in the main Necromunda will be enough to scratch my Squat itch and I probably won’t go too mad on the 40k stuff – we’ll see.
The Chaos stuff is all awesome, I’ve been wanting to see new cultists and traitor guard for a long time so this was all fantastic in my book. Like you I’ll probably let the Moroch box pass me by, I have enough terrain to last a lifetime and the Phobos pattern marines do nothing for me, but when the traitor guard get their separate release I’ll snap them up. It does mean I’ll end up with a second commissar and ogryn but that just means it’s kitbash o’clock! Oh and new World Eaters on the horizon? Sign me up! I’m off to make a big pile of skulls in the garden to celebrate*.
*This is a joke of course, I don’t have a garden so I had to just pile them up on the street and hope for the best.
For me new Warcry = good news every time. That said I too have mixed feelings about moving out of the Eightpoints – on the one hand the new setting in Ghur sounds like it has loads of potential but I did enjoy the Chaos vs Chaos setting we had before. To me I tend to think of Warcry as two different games which happen to share the same rules; one which features the 11 factions made specifically for the game (eg the Iron Golem) and one which features every faction from the wider setting and acts as a kind of “AoS skirmish”. In this way I tend to keep the two separate, I might play Ogres vs Nighthaunt, or Iron Golems vs Untamed Beasts but not Untamed Beasts vs Nighthaunt. It’ll be interesting to see if the new Ghur warbands fit in well against the Eightpoints warbands or if I come to think of it as a third “setting”. As for the Horns of Hashut themselves I like them well enough but visually they’re the warband I’m least excited by so far. Nice to see Hashut making a return though, and again it’s interesting to see them showing some of the human followers of the god, rather than just focussing on Chaos Dwarves. Combined with all the hints from the Kruelboyz release last year it looks like we’ve got Chaos Dwarves to look forward to in a year or two’s time.
Horus Heresy 2.0 looks amazing but, despite being a massive fan of the novels, I don’t see myself getting into it – there’s too many other things demanding my time and money at the moment. I really hoped we’d see the announcement of the next book in the Siege of Terra series, it seems like absolutely ages since Warhawk was released.
Anyway, did I mention I’m very excited about these previews? I’m very excited about these previews!
I always enjoy getting comments from you, as they’re always so well thought out and written!
If I’m being completely honest, I think I’d been hoping the Leagues of Votann thing would make it into a Kill Team box – that would have been nice to have, I think! I’m not going to go out of my way to get them, but for Necromunda, I’ll no doubt pick some up as they do look good, and it makes some sense to have them in there. I do love the mining aesthetic of any miniature, after all!!
Can you imagine if Traitor Guard got an actual release though? After what we saw in Blackstone Fortress, I think I’d be ecstatic! The cultist stuff we’ve got coming kinda taps into that though, as well, so I’m happy for now!
I think that’s a really good way of thinking about Warcry, and I suppose it’s how I’ve been doing it without realising it – I think I’ve tried Khorne mortals against Untamed Beasts once, but that’s still Chaos. Can’t think I’d ever put Stormcast in the game, though as AoS skirmish, it works pretty well, I’m sure!
I think I need to wait and see what Warcry 2.0 looks like, I just can’t imagine how jungle terrain would compete with the Eightpoints – ruined, overgrown temples, maybe?
Chaos Dwarves do sound interesting though, I think I need to look more into those chaps… the list of future blog posts grows longer!!
I tried to get into Horus Heresy in something like 2015, my local GW was running a “grow your Legion” thing whenever Betrayal at Calth was a thing, and I chose Alpha Legion. It all pretty much died a death when I realised that everybody else was just thinking of it as a painting challenge, and I was the only one with the red books, etc. Since then, I’ve really moved away from the idea of marines as an army to collect, so it’s all just fallen off the radar for me.
There’s so much interesting stuff coming though, whether I’m into it or not, it seems like a fascinating time for the hobby!
Ah shucks – thanks man! And excuse the delay in replying, life – as ever – keeps being silly busy!
Aye, I too thought the Leagues of Votann would be for Kill Team. I’m wondering if they still might be though. It looks like the Leagues are still a while away, with GW drip-feeding us info over the next few months. They said we’d get 4 Kill Team releases per year, one per quarter, so maybe it’ll be Squats vs somebody for the autumn box, followed by a full release of the whole army in the late autumn/early winter? Just a wild guess though – I could be completely wrong, but it seems like the sort of thing they might do to hype up both Kill Team and the Leagues.
A full army releases for Traitor Guard would be a dream come true for me! Mind you I remember the days when Chaos Daemons were just a choice between greater and lesser deamons to be added to your Chaos Marines army, or more recently when Death Guard and Thousand Sons were just one unit, and they’ve all since been expanded into full ranges so it might happen someday. Sooner or later GW will have released models for all the obvious aspects of Chaos (really with World Eaters on the way there’s just the Emperor’s Children to go) and, excluding calamity, I don’t foresee them calling it a day with Chaos and never releasing anything else – they’ll be looking for new directions to expand into and Traitor Guard would be an obvious choice. I can even imagine something happening sooner by way of a stop-gap, rules for mixing Chaos and Imperial Guard models could easily pop up in a campaign book over the next year or so. After all the Genestealer Cults have been borrowing Imperial tanks and decorating them for a while now, no reason for the Traitor Guard not to do the same. Plenty of people will be doing it anyway whether or not there’s official rules (I might even be one of them, I still have my old kitbashed Traitor Guard army packed away, might be time to get them out of storage and give them a new lease of life).
I must admit, excited though I am by Warcry 2.0, it seems like it was only 10 minutes ago that Red Harvest was released. I’ve not even finished painting all the terrain from the original set, and then there’s everything from Catacombs to get through, and now more. Just thinking about the terrain it all starts to feel a little overwhelming. I’d be happy enough just seeing new warbands – but sadly GW has me figured out pretty well and knows that they can stick the Warcry or Necromunda logos on just about anything and get my attention. A fool and his money and all that! 😀