Warhammer 40K 9th Edition is packing a punch with a very large - and one would expect - expensive launch set boasting a metric tonne of new models. Revealed late last night Australian/NZ time and at a vaguely reasonable time elsewhere, there's a lot to see! Lets have a look at a few of the videos... With thanks to Steven, we have these great sprue shots form the Twitch stream too. This looks like some fine sculpting, even if they are just push fit models for the most part! What would a boxed set be without Ultramarines? Probably more interesting, but these minis are great and absolutely packed with character! Be very interested to see how they will come up as other Chapters. The Necrons rise! It's about bloody time - talk about fashionably late. The new started box is full of brand new minis, including TWO units of Warriors and some big beasties too. It's not just the launch box that has new minis, there's some other things on the way too. Not sure about these Space Marines ones, but the Necron ones are insane!!
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After days of blurry photo leaks of what is almost an entirely new revamped Necron army, Games Workshop relented and released that clearer version - all be it with some humorous captions!
This revamp is a huge leap forward for an aging Necron range, with the Doom Scythe and Triarch Stalker staying alongside the elite bodyguard units, but everything else getting a buff. New Destroyers, new Warriors, new much-improved big floaty pyramid plus brand new units including the Skorpekh Lord which seems to be the poster boy for this release. The massive Silent King model is certainly going to steal the show and attract every piece of heavy artillery towards it in-game! There's some really unusual new shapes and styles of Necron, but they all fit in with the current look at feel, keeping the psuedo-Tomb Kings in space motif going on. We've got some closeups below of some of the new things, including a mini not a lot of people seem to have spotted lurking in the shadows, plus what looks like some scenery. This is an exciting new release, assumed to be released alongside the new 9th Edition 40K, so we will see if that's late this year or early next year - either way, we really need to work out a colour scheme for Necrons. The plan was big - build that army that's been in mothballs, and at the end of lockdown there will be a shiny new army to look back on. It didn't work out that way. Probably like a lot of hobbyists who were working from home, the whole lockdown has been exhausting. It was hard to be motivated, but like JP said in our chat on Hobby In Lockdown, don't expect too much. Don't let it become a burden.
The projects may not have been huge, but they have been varied - finally making headway on the War Hounds Assault Squad, working on the Victoria Miniatures Heavy Mortar (Super-Size), another Slaaneshi Chaos Warrior added to the ranks, a kitbashed Dark Eldar Grotesque that started as an experiment and became something super fluffy and theme-y, and a Fireforge Games Northmen. - Hopefully in the next little while I can show you more of these projects as they were fun to try - which is what the hobby is all about, having fun and trying new things! Who doesn't love a good half-man, half-serpent? Well the good folks at HeroForge have very nicely made all our dreams come true with this absolute beauty. Of course, like all things HeroForge is it entirely customisable for Fantasy of Scifi, with a tonne of posing, weapon and even body shape options. HeroForge also offer a printer version of an STL for those of us with 3D printers. Have a look at the base figure below and you'll get an idea of how easy it would be to swap torsos, or arms, weapons and accessories. We're working on an idea for some elite infantry for Tomb Kings, or maybe some guards for Cobra Commander. Go have a look at all the other minis you can make too - you'll spend ages customising! It's been a while since the Project: War Hounds section of the site got a solid update - but that doesn't mean things have been static. You may have seen posts on the Facebook and sometimes the Blog page, but the Project: War Hounds section is for a more lengthy exploration of the Legion that we are building from multiple sources while at the same time actually building a cohesive look and feel. It all takes time, and that is sometimes lacking in our busy world! Suffice to say, there has been a lot of slow force building (as you saw the other day) and a number of units are nearing completion. In honour of that, head on over to the War Hounds section of the site and you can see a slice of what we've been up to. Although the updates have been few and far between, there has actually been a lot of movement on the War Hounds Legion force. It may just be one or two minis a week, but slowly it's getting bigger all the time with new units forming and a more cohesive look to the markings and feel of the army. Today I was very happy to finish the Tactical Support squad, with their super-fluffy Volkite weaponry. This unit spans a bit of time - actually having the very first War Hound I ever painted amongst its ranks. For more pics and detailed write up, go to the Project: War Hounds section
Well not literally of course - technically skeletons live forever - BUT the point is, these new Chaos Warriors have us so exited and they really only seems to register a blip on the Community radar.
Apart from the same upside down shields the Mortek Guard have, these miniatures are such a generational leap beyond the now-iconic Chaos Warriors that have stalked the battlefields for decades now. Even if they are mono-pose, the dynamic nature of the poses really sets them into the area that the art for these miniatures has existed in for a long long time. A close look will actually show you a melding of the current Chaos Warriors and the ones that came before it - who frankly look pretty squat and sad these days but were once amazing!! The Chaos Knights are a huge improvement to the current range, who do have amazing horses, but the riders aren't that great. One of the big winners here is the leader of this foul band of brigands who has obviously been pose a a dark reflection of the Astreia Solbright or Vandus Hammerhand or a Lord-Aquilor. All of it is just clever stuff and although releases come and go, this one is really one to look forward to! Man these Thallax are a pain in the butt to make!! If they weren't so damn fiddly, we'd definitely have more. The latest addition is the quasi-leader so I decided to go with a more human pose. These are entirely sentient machines after all - robots with thinking, feeling human brains - who will kill you!
Who doesn't love Thallax? Apart from the poor sods you have to build these incredibly fiddly bloody models of course. The Thallax look amazing - the super soldiers of the Mechanicus, these are how the Space Marines would have been in they were human-augmented robots and not robot-augmented humans. During the Great Crusade and through the Horus Heresy, the Mechanicum would task out these powerful sentient robots to the Adeptus Astartes Legions, so surely the XIIth Legion War Hounds would have had some, right? They certainly used Praevians, and Praevians need robots!
Who said sticking to one project was a good idea. Having been going full steam ahead with the War hounds Project, I got a little distracted - and by all things, Goblins. Have no idea why, maybe some moon-powered magic. This project was really about updating the old Stabbas/ Shootas kit and making a more Brian Froud looking Goblin force. Brian Froud is the visionary behind The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, with a particular style to Goblins - a style Games Workshop have obviously been influences by for their latest Gloomspite Gitz faction for Age of $igmar. Really I just wanted to experiment with infantry, so this was a good place to start. Taking the standard Stabbas/ Shootas kit I cut the heads off and replaced with with the heads from the Squigg Hoppers kit. They don't kit perfectly, so there's a bit of trimming, but they are a big improvement on the original heads. Then I went about sculpting different types of armour on the hands and arms with Green Stuff. This was meant to look haphazard and old, worn out. Then it struck me that a form of spiky or chitinous armour on their backs would be cool, so I bought some Grey Stuff due to it's harder and sharper consistency. This works better for armour plates that Green Stuff as it will give you sharp edges. It also dries a lot harder so you can sand or scrape it into shape. Small balls were then added to make rivets. Overall quite happy with them. The standard bearer has more armour as an experiment for the leader's look, which I haven't quite worked out yet...
Painting has begun, and you will be happy to know that this project will get done before I start another - no matter how much I can hear the War Hounds calling to me.. .and maybe the Dark Angels again too. When the Chaos Knights were released, their little cousins - the Armigers - were oddly missing from the release schedule. We'd seen them in pictures in banner ads across the GW site (see below) but not on offer to buy. Well it seems that they did appear, but only in New Zealand and in a not entirely finalised and confused write up on their webstore. The entries mention both Imperial Armigers and War Dogs, in fact even the box art are the Imperial versions. Be curious to see when we do get these, but now at least we do know what they will look like! The Knight Armigers aren't the only ones - by the way - their much larger cousins the Chaos Knight Tyrants are also on the GW NZ Webstore! Like the War Dogs, these don't have an extra Chaos Upgrade Sprue with spikes and the like, it's just a different colour scheme and again a confused partially done write up which doesn't show Chaos decals or the box art.
- EDIT - And then without any warning or fanfare, they've turned up, a day later, on the Australian webstore For some weeks now I've been tooling around with a Chaos chariot, wanting it to fit into a Slaanesh force. Having never painted pink, this was interesting as it's such an overpowering colour. Thing is, pink is just one aspect of Slaanesh, there are purples and especially blacks, so when it came to the driver it was time for more experimentation using a dark pink and a new skin tone to have a more dusky look. My vampires and Dark Eldar have a warm grey tone, so this needed to be different and was Flayed One Flesh with a wash of a warm grey and a touch of purple, then working the highlights up with the base and white. The miniature itself is a Kairic Acolyte sliced and diced with a Slaanesh Daemonette head. The straps across the body are Green Stuff and the shoulder armour is from the Hellstriders kit.
There's no real rush on this model, so will tinker away at it and see what works! So here's a story - the very first time Apocalypse came around Games Workshop released a Space Marine Company box. 106 multi-part Space Marines and 9 Rhinos - it's a beast of a set! Full of excitement I bought this box. Yes well... Suffice to say - who doesn't like a big army box?
The preview of these sets buzzed through Beardy Hammer HQ as we zoomed in on images to see the contents, slavering madly in excitement. These sets are split up across most of the factions (interestingly missing Drukhari so far) and then into role, so you will see Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines get Battalion Detachments, Mechanicus (OMG a box of Kastelans!!), Tau and Eldar get Vanguard Detachments, Imperial Guard, Orks and Tyranids get Spearhead Detachments, Necrons get an Outrider Detachment (guess this is what the Drukhari would get too) and then there's a Super-Heavy Detachment for Imperial Knights (and you would assume the Chaos Knights would get released for Apocalypse so there's probably one for them too). The Space Marines ones seem to be a mix of multi-part and snap-fit minis, giving you a tonne of dudes. The Mechanicus one, depending on the price-point could be a solid saving on what is, in Australia at least, a pricey kit, while the Tau one is a flavour we've seen in various incarnations - swapping out the Ghostkeel for a Riptide. The Eldar Detachment, like the Mechanicus, could be a good cost saving too - also a great set which could look striking on the field. The Imperial Guard Detachment is the only one with a transport in it which makes sense with all the tanks, while the Ork walkers and Tyranids are great force builders is nothing else BUT it is curious not seeing a horde option for Tyranids in here. The Necron Outrider Detachment will likely outflank anything and if the Drukhari get a set like this, it would make perfect sense. The Imperial Knights sets speaks for itself, but curious if there are weapons options for the Helverins to make the Warglaives. Now we've seen these, but I wonder if there might be a Space Marine Spearhead one coming with Predators or Land Raiders, or a Craftworld Outrider with Jetbikes (or maybe that will be a Harlequin allied set?), or an Ork Battallion set with Nobz and Boyz galore. Lots of possibilites, either way a good way to army build and save some money. We'll leave you with this observation though - that Apocalypse Space Marine Company set I got back in 2007 I told you about earlier was to build an Apocalypse force - how do you think that went? Spend wisely. You may have seen some of my Technocracy force before - loyal subjects to Hierophant Keltis Crannax, Mortus Pultii of the Fluvian Cluster, Protector Ultimus, Master of Man. Although updates here have been slow, there's actually quite a force growing now - this weekend topped off by the addition of a Kastelan Robot, an ancient relic of a time long lost. The Kastelan Robot is reasonably common in the Mechanicus forces of Mars and served with the Emperor's forces in the Great Crusade and with many sides during the Unification Wars on Terra. They have been around for well over 10,000 years, some say 20 or even 30,000 years, making them likely to be amongst the far-flung worlds who lost contact with Terra tens of thousands of years ago. This is how this particular machine is found in the forces of the Heirophant. As you can see, the standard Mechanicus Kastelan is not what we have here. Centuries of innovation and design upgrades have made it an entirely different beast. In fact although the Mechanicus and the forces of Terra barely know how to use the Kastelan, having to use a Tech-Priest to guide it and with limited flexibility, the Heirophant's forces are using a robot entirely able to function by the means of Terran-outlawed AI. It possesses new weapons, plus vastly updated sensors and control systems in a new cranial control surface. The power system is also entirely different - swapping out whatever the original power core was (the Mechanicus one is not the original either) for something built from native tech. This is not the plodding mindless robot of the Imperium, this is something much closer to its original functions seen so many thousands of years ago. This miniature really was a triumph of the bitz box - using a combination of the original Kastelan Robot kit and adding bitz from the Kharadron Arkanaut Ironclad and Thundrik's Profiteers. As this is not piece of technology from an age before the arcane crafts of Adeptus Mechanicus, I wanted to use as few pieces from that range as possible and go for something a bit more Steampunk - far away from the traditional grimdark look - so the Kharadrons came to mind. The head started as the backpack from the Thundrik's Profiteers with added Skitarii and Kharadron bitz. This wasn't meant to look like the torture droid from the Death Star in Star Wars, but maybe it's so ingrained in my consciousness it just came out! The torso was an interesting challenge as it's quite large and bulbous, and very Adeptus Mechanicus looking. In fact the front of the torso actually has the control surface from the Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-Priest on it (alluding to the idea that you don't actually need a Tech-Priest to run it at all) with a Skitarii backpack and the front of a Kharardon helmet, echoing back to the first Heirophant troops I did. The back of the torso was quite a bit of fiddly work, removing almost all trace of the original power pack and adding various Kharadron backpack, tubes and pipes pieces. I'm very happy with this part actually, and may revisit the paint job later on. The arms are pretty stock standard, but cut off at the elbows and new elbow joints added from cut up sprue to give added movement to the pose. The weapons needed to be something totally different from the Imperium but also work in with the look i'd already started - so I cut down the front gun from the Arkanaut Ironclad, added some pipes and a cut-down sensor from the a Skitarii backpack as well as another form the top of a Skitarii gun. The second weapon is my favourite and based on a Gundam Acguy missile pod arm. It's actually two re-purposed parts off the Arkanaut Ironclad engine with holes drilled into it to make the launch tubes. The magazine underneath is a Cadian grenade launcher cut up and re-positioned. The legs are pretty standard, just using the groin armour from a Space Marine Centurion cut down to fit. The bottom of the legs were then given stretched sprue around the front armour plates to be echo the MKIII armour used on the legs of the infantry. The toes also got some love, with trigger guards from Skitarii guns used to create these upturned toe decorations, sort of Byzantine looking - an echo back to another Empire from the past. So there he is - a fearsome adversary for the forces of the Great Crusade to come across as they expand throughout the old dominions of Man.
Games Workshop have unveiled a bevy of new minis at UK Games Day 2019 - some filling in some holes in the current roster, some brand new additions to new ranges. Necromunda gangs are about to get a rude shock, because The Law are in town, with the Palanite Enforcers. Despite the expectation on these, have to say these aren't as exciting as we'd hoped. There's just something not quite right? Scale? Poses? Is it the helmets? Another Specialist Games to get reinforcements is Blood Bowl, with the much-anticipated Wood Elves team. Really dynamic poses make these really interesting. The new game Warcry, has another excellent looking Chaos force, the raven-themed Corvus Cabal force. More excellent miniatures for this game which is probably going to be huge, if the buzz around the miniatures continues! Finally we finally have new Chaos Cultists in the form of the second half of the new Blackstone Fortress expansion, Escalation. This new force, the Servants of the Abyss, are what we were looking for in the recent Warhammer 40K Chaos releases. A nice mix of Imperial Guard elements, with the usual spiky Chaos bits to make things interesting. - With no release dates on these, we'll be sure to see them trickle out sooner rather than later. He had ruled the galaxy for an Age. A cluster of heavily industrialised planets orbiting around a single sun. No one knew how old he was, no one had even seen his face in generations, but all knew that his love for them was without bounds. He had brought light to the darkness, crushed Xenos enemies and human raiders alike, all the while creating worlds that fed, clothed and armed the people to become a place of peace and harmony. Deep inside his mountain keep, the Master of Man held all his people close, for he knew what was out there, how even the slightest utterance from the Old World could see this all come crumbling down. I've had this idea for quite some time now of what combatants my War Hounds Legion would come up against. Sure there would be Xenos, but one thing the War Hounds did very well was pacification - bringing the human worlds who had been separated for thousands of years back to the fold of the Emperor. So I wondered what these worlds would be like, socially, spiritually and militarily and that sent me on a path of kitbashing a force to face down the Great Crusade. There have been a few failures, but finally this idea struck me and once the iconography and the backstory came together, finally they were one. The overall look of the Technocracy troops, the forces of the Heirophant, needed to be bulky, but not Space Marines. They are a military force that have conquered a system, repelled invaders from Orks to Eldar for thousands of years - they have to be strong and human, but have no traces of any touch of the Imperium or the Mechanicum. These guys have the STC patterns, they have developed their own guns, armour and technology not from a reverential fearful background, but from a background of never having forgotten. - All the bits are Games Workshop or Forge World, just purely for ease of access on the bitz market and the amount of plastic kits. The MKIII legs were a must (though MKII were tested) and the torsos from the Kharadron Grundstok Thunderers gave the bulked up look needed. Stormcast could have also worked, but as I wanted more steampunk than Fantasy, these were perfect. MKII Forge World arms and Kharadron forearms worked together quite well but not perfectly as did extra bits and pieces from the Grundstok Thunderers kit, including the guns which are cut down from their weapons and Tigrus Pattern Bolters. I even cut the toes off the Grundstok Thunderers to get away from the MKIII toes on the legs - this worked amazingly well. I tried a whole lot of heads from across the GW ranges, but the Mechanicum, heads were perfect, even if the goggled-head now doesn't really do it for me. The scheme for the troops came from nowhere really. I don't do a lot of metallics, but Balthazar Gold has been a favourite for a while so that was a totally different type of scheme which is really what I was after. I drybrushed the base with Golden Griffin and then washed the entire model with Agrax Earthshade Gloss. Then all the rivets and joins in the armour, around the arms and joins - everywhere - was painstakingly painted with normal Agrax Earthshade. This gave the metal an aged look and feel. This is basically what I do with Knight's armour too, but in a different palette - it's very effective for natural looking metals. The rivets and weapons are just Leadbelcher and Nuln Oil, nothing special. As much as the miniatures looked cool before painting, the colour scheme just really makes them pop. I had thought of a colour for unit markings, but i'm worried it will just ruin them as the bronze is so thematic. Honestly I am very pleased with these. I may experiment with more and even try to expand the universe, but knowing me I'll get distracted, so this may very well be it.
Hope you like them - comments very welcome! There are many creatures and races lurking in the fluff of the Warhammer universes, some come to light after many years like the Necrons did and then there are those that have waited for even longer, biding their time - the Ambull is just such a creature. Originally native to desert worlds, it seems the Ambull can now be found in the space because now we have them in the first of the Blackstone Fortress expansions Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress – The Dreaded Ambull. The latest expansion now also gets it's first hobby accessory, the Blackstone Fortress Carry Case which looks quite a bit bigger than the previous soft cases we have seen. In books we have the first full length novel featuring Hamilcar Bear-Eater, Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods and the second Gotrek and Felix Omnibus. Meanwhile Forge World have released new minis for the vampire-Batman Space Marines - the Night Lords. First up is the Night Lords Leviathan Dreadnought with Siege Claws. You can also get it without the claws if that is your want and desire. There are also two Praetors - the superbly detailed Night Lords Legion Praetor in Tartaros Terminator Armour which not only comes with an alternate bare head, but also seems to have Adolf Hitler's head around his waist... and the Night Lords Legion Praetor who sports a MKIV jetpack and an optional bare head. Both of these poses are amazing - both dynamic and fear inducing. The detail on the armour is brilliant. A real high point for Forge World sculpting, plus a fair price - about the same as a plastic GW character. There are also Night Lords Dice to strike fear into every dice roll. Games Workshop revealed some new minis from their upcoming arena-style game, Combat Arena. The new minis have been drawn from across the Warhammer 40K universe and include an Inquisition Crusader, A Tech Priest, what looks like a Servitor, a Psyker and another Rogue Trader. They're all great looking miniatures who will hopefully also get a release outside the boxed game. In reality, this motley crew could actually be a Rogue trader's retinue, and as this serves as a Blackstone Fortress prequel, maybe we will start to see boxed sets of Rogue Traders and their retinues coming our way.
As you may know, from time to time we buy new stuff we have seen so we can review it and pass that info on to you and bases seem to always be a popular one. We all want to add more character to our models, especially special units or characters. Well the other week we came across Unreal Wargaming online and thought we'd do a small order to sample the quality - and we have to say WOW! Not only was the international postage to Australia quite quick, the quality of the product is just amazing - to the point where I'm seriously considering rebasing all my 60+ War Hounds Legion on these bases! So lets dive in... Logically the best place to do a sample order is the 32mm bases for your troops - we ordered the 32mm Urban Rubble Bases Set 2 (10). The detail on these is amazing - pipes, girders, pieces of metal all mixed in with bricks and rocks to create a very random but also flat-enough surface for minis. The detail is also crisp, but not so crisp that the corners seem fragile, these are solid bases and beautifully executed! As I said above, these may become the bases for my War Hounds now. We also ordered two larger character bases. Some character bases seem so large and ungainly that they almost overshadow the miniature themselves - hello Forge World, are you listening? These however provide enough surface area and detail, but don't detract from the model in scale. On the left we have the 40mm Urban Rubble Character Base 1 and on the right 40mm Urban Rubble Character Base 2. Both of these are simple but have nice little touches to them. Unreal Wargaming do have more elaborate bases, but for our purposes, this seemed to fit. Unreal Wargaming have a tonne of other bases in various sizes including the new 170mm and 120mm Knight and Flyer bases! They are super cool.
Honestly we are pleasantly surprised and impressed by Unreal Wargaming and their products, so if you're in the market for bases or scenery, look them up ans sample their wares. - ++ This Review Was Not Paid For By A Third Party And Is The Unpaid Opinion of Beardy Hammer ++ Only one pre-order this week, and it's not even a pre-order - it's in the shops now!!! That's right, the reimagining (well actually it's pretty much a straight copy) of Jes Goodwin's 1991 Noise Marine is here. The model itself is very cool, especially if you like a bit of retro stuff.
The proportions are half way between a Primaris and a normal Marine, so it would fit into the current direction of the minis quite well. Be really interesting to see the conversions that will come out of this mini, as the pose is open to some fun for sure! |
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April 2024
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