If you're looking forward to the new Genestealer Cults miniatures and Codex, Games Workshop have released this Designer video to give some clues and information about what to expect....

Kill Team is dominating this week's pre-orders with the new Arena Competitive Expansion with tactics and mission cards, including Battle Brothers missions and 8 Competitive Play missions as well as 2 sets of 12 Arena Objective cards as well as a double-sided, folding card game boards and 2 plastic frames of scenery. There's also some new low-rise scenery in the  Sector Fronteris Environment set. The first Kill Team to enter the frey is the new Starn's Disciples Genestealer Cults Kill Team with the exclusive Kelermorph (right) character. Not to be left out, the Mechanicus also gets a new Kill Team, the Theta-7 Acquisitus with the exclusive Tech-Priest Manipulus miniature 
The only other pre-order this week is Made To Order Orcs - from the dim dark mists of time including the iconic Orc Warboss on Wyvern, Orc Great Shamans, Goblin Shamans, Night Goblin Shamans, Black Orc Big Boss, Night Goblin Boss, and the Night Goblin Warboss.
Next week also sees the next issue of the new White Dwarf February 2019 which, despite the promises of Index Astartes... it's missing! In issue two!! Sad...

Been pretty busy on the work front over here, so please excuse the lack of updates apart from pre-orders, this week we have a really nice diverse bunch of releases to look at!
First off is the new Adeptus Titanicus Titandeath Campaign book which is trumpeting not only a new campaign around Beta-Garmon but also background and Legion-specific rules for 8 Titan Legions, narrative missions, campaign rules and more. Having seen my first game of Titanicus last weekend, I can see how Legio-specific rules are important to the game, so this will be welcomed by the community. To go along with this release is the new Reaver with Melta Cannon and Chainfist, which not only gives you a melta cannon, volcano cannon and chainfist, but also the first new carapace mounted weapon, a turbo laser destructor, something people have been kitbashing for a while. Adding extra punch to the existing Warlord Titan, the Plasma Annihilators, Laser Blasters and Power Claw sprue is now also available separately as suggested by the Community.
Warhammer Underworlds Nightvault have some reinforcements inbound - both foreshadowed in the Malign Portents champions from early 2018 - Mollog's Mob for the Gloomspite Gitz (beautifully painted BTW) and Godsworn Hunt, the first troops we've seen for the Darkoath Warqueen Marakarr Blood-sky. Very curious for this range to finally come out - which must be close now. Some of the styling here is quite cool - some of it is very 1981 Conan-esque! There are of course Godsworn Hunt Dice and Godsworn Hunt Card Sleeves as well as Mollog's Mob Dice and Mollog's Mob Card Sleeves. 
The recent re-launch of the Middle-earth brand has been going full steam ahead with the new Gondor at War expansion which focuses on Sauron's assault on the kingdom of Gondor during the War of the Ring. Following the excellent Gandalf the White and Peregrin Took set we also get the Three Hunters set. Apart from the cartoon-ish painting of the faces, these look like lovely miniatures!! There is also a Three Hunters Dice Set and a new General's Accessories Pack which seems like a great way to get into this rules set.
In books this week we have the Celestine (Limited Edition) which looks very pretty and could very well be the precursor to the Sisters of Battle...
Also this week, if you order anything from the webstore, you get the Warhammer Adventures sampler, giving you  This free sampler book contains the first five chapters of Attack of the Necron and the first three chapters of City of Lifestone!

Meanwhile, from the studio that gutted the Horus Heresy range - Forge World - we have some pretty ordinary bare heads for your Stormcast; the Stormcast Eternals – Heads Upgrade Set 1 (Male) and the Stormcast Eternals – Heads Upgrade Set 2 (female). Considering other players in the market - PuppetsWar, Mad Robot, MaxMini and Victoria Miniatures to mention just a few - these are pretty poor!

Games Workshop seem intent on making urban warfare the way of the 40K future - from City Fight to the new Urban Conquest, there have been supplements, White Dwarf articles, and now entire boxed games making sure you are smack bang in a city when it's time to rumble! I'm sure the explosion of terrain recently (only a good thing, frankly) means GW see this as a very marketable prospect, this week's new Sector Imperialis Manufactorum is another great entry into the recent terrain releases - so is urban warfare the way to go from now on? No more Cold War style open fields for hoards of tanks, artillery and aircraft, not to mention titans and walkers? Skirmish is the future, long live the skirmish!
The Gloomspite Gitz continue their sizeable release window with a number of interesting releases - the Loonboss (who has a separate head under the helmet for some reason) gives you a second leader option from last week plus there's also the insane Loonboss on Mangler Squigs/ Mangler Squigs combi-kit which gives you a third leader option! Leaders need advisors/ minions/ yes-men and the Gobbapalooza set gives you multiple weirdos. Did someone just liberally hand out magic mushrooms at GW HQ and everyone got to design something weird? In the big-boy category the Rockgut Troggoths are a very customisable unit in a tonne of pieces. It's curious to see GW go towards so many Easy Fit sets and then this one is so many pieces - not complaining, just curious. The winner of the Most Needing To Go To The Dentist Award is the Dankhold Troggoth/ Dankhold Troggboss combi-kit - both unattractive but incredible detailed and theme-y models. The Sneaky Snufflers is a cute little set - but check out the price... this is for one sprue!!
Another 40K product this week is a Death Guard Paint Set with three minis - not bad value if you want some full sized paints and to test some schemes.
Fair few books for your shelves next week - the next Gaunt's Ghosts, Book 15 Anarch is here, as is the new Blood Angels: The Complete Rafen Omnibus featuring all of James Swallow's Blood Angel novels. The Warhammer Chronicles continue, this time with classic stories, Wulfrik, Blood for the Blood God, and Palace of the Plague Lord all bundled up in Warriors of the Chaos Wastes. And finally the next Horus Heresy audio drama, Nightfane​ continues the story of Ultramarine Aenoid Thiel and his Red Marked.

We first caught sight of the Gloomspite Gitz from the Warhammer Underworlds set Zarbag’s Gitz. They were cute and a bit weird and similar in theme to the Malign Portents Champion Fungoid Cave-Shaman Snazzgar Stinkmullett. Each of the other champions has a force (except for the Darkoath Warqueen Marakarr Blood-sky) so I guess it was going to happen eventually! That leads us to today when we get a fairly wide ranging release of course headed up by Battletome: Gloomspite Gitz - which comes in both Opioid Fungus Limited Edition and Portobello Standard Edition. This rag-tag army is lead by Overlord Skragrott the Loonking who is an amazing miniature - lots and lots of character - but he is over $50 for a single sprue! Luckily for us there are also a bevy of new miniatures including the Squig Hoppers who can also be made to represent Boingrot Bounderz who very much wear the Labyrinth/ Brian Froud influence on their sleeve. Froud's influence on this range has been downplayed a bit, but it's definitely there! As with a lot of the Gloomspite Gitz range, there are Squigs, so this Squig Herd set would likely be the backbone of any of your forces. Sporting the more traditional GW look of the long hoods, the Fanatics are a very dynamic kit which can either be made up as Loonsmasha Fanatics or Sporesplatta Fanatics - but like the overlord, be aware of the price point. It's only 5 minis after all! Like the Beasts of Chaos release, there is a shrine, this one the Bad Moon Loonshrine  which is packed with detail and also a new entrant into the physical magic items, the Endless Spells: Gloomspite Gitz. Being re-released are the old Grots set, the Stabbas/Shootas combi kit, but it's a pity GW didn't give us a helmet upgrade sprue in here to bring them in line with the newer minis. Themed dice are the way to go for the past year or so, but these Squig Dice are awful! There are of course Warscroll Cards: Gloomspite Gitz and if you order the Battletome online then you get a set of Gloomspite Gitz Art Cards.
This is an interesting release - really moving the old Grots out of the Ork realm and giving them their own flavour, but is this something the community have been after? We will see, but with Seraphon desperately needing an update it's curious this is here now. We're sure there's method to the madness because it's been a hot bone of contention around the place....

Happy New Year! 2019 is upon us and inspired by Femnist 40K's list and Warhammer TV's video, we thought we'd take a wander through the releases of 2018. As you know, we all have plenty to say each week about what's been released so lets take a journey through the 2018 archives and see if any of that stacked up in the log run
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January 2018 started off with Malign Portents - the big splash for Age of $igmar which brought some great models, a massive expansion to the Stormcast and Death and of course the start of the new influx of Nurgle - because if a month goes by without something Nurgle being released, the world may fall apart! Thousand Sons got their Codex in January and the Custodes really hit their strides with multiple multi-part kits coming out. Both Thousand Sons and Custodes led to many changes in the gaming meta and are both armies that Power Gamers love. By the end of 2018 though, considerable changes in competitive play had meant that the Custodes armies were on the decline. January also saw the Daughters of Khaine and the Armiger Warglaives teased.
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February saw Malign Portents kind of fizz out - we got four new characters, and soon we would get a lot more forces to accompany these heroes, but in February it looked a tad sad. Necromunda had the Orlocks​ released, a great kit that seems to have disappeared like all Necromunda kits. Shadespire really kicked on with the Spiteclaw’s Swarm and the The Chosen Axes being released. Shadespire gave us some really nice characterful models for all factions of Age of $igmar throughout the year. February also saw the Daughters of Khaine swoop in and more Elves - this time the Idoneth Deepkin were teased and boy ere they about to cause a stir.
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March 2018 was Elves month - with the Melusai Blood Sisters/ Melusai Blood Stalkers combi kit and the Khinerai Lifetakers/ ​Khinerai Heartrenders combi kit hitting the shelves. Both lovely kits, they soon disappeared under the weight of other things in 2018 which is a bit of a shame. GW also didn't seem to be that involved in keeping the evolving story going... The much-maligned Tau got their Codex finally, Kill Team and the Van Saars were teased and the boxed game  Forgebane was released. Forge World also released the first of the upgrade sets for Necromunda- this time for  Escher. Adepticon brought us so many teasers it hurt, the Necrons were reforged with an excellent Codex but no new minis. This was a very popular release and did very well, even if the Start Collecting set wasn't as good. Speaking of which, the Dark Elder/ Drukhari got their Codex and their Start Collecting was probably worse...
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April 2018 saw new Shadespire, The Farstriders and Magore’s Fiends - more great minis in dynamic poses but the really big thing for April was the Idoneth Deepkin - what Drukhari are to the Aeldari in 40K, the Deepkin are to the High Elves in Age of $igmar. Even their units are very similar and they were an amazing breathe of fresh air into a universe that had been OBSESSED with Stormcast for months! Disappointingly lacking in poseability, the Deepkin are none the less very dynamic and detailed-strewn miniatures. Among week after week of spectacular Idoneth Deepkin releases, the House Van Saar and some Forge World characters appeared for Necromunda and The Doom Lords Chaos Chosen team for Blood Bowl. April 2018 saw Games Workshop barely set a foot wrong - the Deepkin release was perfect!
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May 2018 saw more Deepkin incluyding the spectacular  Akhelian Leviadon,the Akhelian Allopex and Akhelian Ishlaen Guard / Akhelian Morrsarr Guard . This rounded off the Deepkin and further cemented their Drukhari influences. May saw the first big deletion of Horus Heresy upgrade kits from Forge World. This was just the beginning of worse. The Deathwatch and Harlequins got their Codex in May.
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June 2018 was Knights - big Knights - with the Knight Castellan and Knight Valiant coming out and the 
Arm​iger Halverins also making their appearance to go with their Codex. A new version of Renegade joined us and the cavalcade of terrain was upon us with the Sacristan Forgeshrine turning up. June also saw Age of $igmar V2.0 rock up in the guise of the  Soul Wars boxed set with a whole new slant on the Stormcast and a huge new Death army - the Nighthaunt. The Deepkin miniatures were amazing, and the Nighthaunt miniatures may have even eclipsed those.
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July 2018 was where we started to see more Blood Bowl - which this year so far only had one team and seemed to be languishing, but the Naggaroth Nightmares helped bring some light (or dark) to the equation.  Spike! the Blood Bowl magazine was still dribbling out, but in reality it's not hitting where it should, which is a shame. The Nighthaunt had some spectacular figures including ​Dreadblade Harrows and Reikenor the Grimhailer but also saw GW head towards Easy To Build minis - which seems like a dumbing down of the hobby and not at even a huge discounted price. The Stormcast also got some amazing models, with the breathtaking Lord-Arcanum on Tauralon/ Aventis Firestrike: Magister of Hammerhal. Interestingly, despite being amazing, these models came and went and I have not seen them in any store or on any gaming table since- they were very expensive though! Kill Team launched with a large set and a big increase to the Sector Imperialis series of terrain.
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August 2018 gave us a glimpse at something we had been promised since April 2017 - Adeptus Titanicus!! GW made a huge tactical error here making this an Online Exclusive only, with store managers crying out for copies as people came into stores to learn more. I have a theory that we will see these in stores in 2019. Necromunda received another gang - this time Cawdor, plus Forge World gave us the new Orlock Weapon Sets. Nighthaunt and Stormcast sets continued to drop in both multi-part and Easy to Build forms, but taking the piss not even slightly were the Easy to Build: Chainrasp Hordes which were being sold for the same price as multi-part kits. That's just not cool GW, and people wonder why we call it Age of $igmar! The boxed game Tooth and Claw introduced the Space Wolves Upgrade Sprue for Primaris, new minis for the Genestealer Cults and coincided with the Space Wolves Codex. August also saw the release of the new boxed game Battle of Pelennor Fields relaunched the Middle-Earth range for Games Workshop. 
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​September 2018 got very busy with the release of the Reaver Battle Titan for Adeptus Titanicus, the Nurgle's Rotters team for Blood Bowl, and sadly one of the most derided games for some time, Kill Team: Rogue Trader. Thankfully the concept was revisited later this year, but the set was full of confusing miniatures, some wildly out of scale with one another and really no further support than throwing it out there. Age of $igmar finally decided to give some love to the Beastmen with a great Start Collecting Beasts of Chaos set and lush Battletome. Although there was really only a few new miniatures in the form of the new Herdstone and Endless Spells: Beasts of Chaos this was a really nice, single week release. The Battletome is also very good, weaving together past iterations of the Beastmen into one narrative. Lost in this month was the Knight Preceptor Canis Rex Imperial Knight set. Bet you'd forgotten it even existed. Shadespire took a new direction in August with Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault. Cleverly GW also released the Thorns of the Briar Queen and Stormsire's Cursebreakers separately from the game in the same week. Yet another boxed game in September, Wake The Dead set in the still-unfolding War Zone Vigilus. Kill Team continued with the coolest kill team name so far - Advance Team Starpulse for the Tau.
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October 2018 added to Adeptus Titanicus with the totally awesome Warhound Titan. Warhammer Underworlds also gave us a glimpse of things to come with Zarbag’s Gitz - a precursor (though more influenced by Brian Froud's armoured Goblins)  to the community-puzzling Gloomspite Gitz. Kill Team continued with the Commanders Expansion Boxed Set and a tonne of repackaged characters. Again, there doesn't seem to be many games of Kill Team in stores, so not sure how this is going for GW. There was more green--goodness with Speed Freeks being released to satiate your love of Mad Max and Orks all in one game.  The last of the Xenos Codex also got released which was for the Orks, who also got a tonne of new and old pre-orders... and then summarily disappeared!
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November 2018 started off with a tonne of scenery sets and yet more paint sets... it was looking dire, until  Blackstone Fortress kicked in the door. There was also more Adpetus Titanicus with the Cerastus Knights, a mighty new version of the Warlord Titan, this one with Plasma Annihilator and Power Claw. Not to be forgotten Armies of The Hobbit was released which saw a huge week or so of Middle Earth pre-orders. The GW Vigilus Open Day surprised many with news of new minis for the Vigilus campaign, cavalry units for the Genestealer Cults, more details on Wrath and Rapture and a look at the massive Forge World Warbringer Nemesis Titan.
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December 2018 saw Necromunda reveal their final current gang with Delaque gang and a finalised Necromunda Rulebook. There were also a number of cool Battle Boxes for Xmas, and the Vigilus Campaign kicked off with some great minis including the Marneus Calgar, Ultramarines Chapter Master. Despite some cool demons, Wrath and Rapture kind of hit with a whimper but the re-imagined Noise Marine based on Jes Goodwin's design made some very cool wave. Maybe sound waves?? And finally for 2018, White Dwarf is getting a 2019 facelift. It hasn't been a popular decision, but we won't be joining in.
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Clearly Games Workshop had some amazing victories this year, with the Nighthaunt, Blood Bowl teams and Idoneth Deepkin, amongst others, some delayed victories with Adpetus Titanicus and the Necromunda gangs who really needed to be brought out sooner, but finally hit their strides and some mixed things like the pricing which seemed inconsistent at times and then exciting releases like the Daughters of Khaine and Orks coming and going so quickly.
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So from all of us here, to you - have a very happy and healthy 2019 - here's hoping we are served well by the hobby and we in turn serve the community well.