Shadespire is a fast-paced skirmish games set in the Age of $igmar universe, and apart from being yet another board game that sits gathering dust so you can get a new toy, it has some really dynamic miniatures.
Currently there are warbands that you can buy separately to add to the game, and as of next week you can now save $10 AUD and get those minis without all the cards that just take up room. Unfortunately these are Push-Fit, but their poses certainly transcend the usual stilted, static mono-pose offerings. On offer we have warbands for Skaven, Stormcast Eternals, Khorne Bloodbound, Deathrattle, Stormcast Eternals Farstriders, Khorne Bloodbound Reavers, Fyreslayers and the Ironjawz. These will make great additions to any Age of $igmar army as centrepieces, elite units or even scattered amongst your troops. Also on offer in Push-Fit is the Easy to Build Primaris Space Marines Collection and the Easy to Build Death Guard Collection.
In books we have Warhammer Chronicles: The War of Vengeance Omnibus which collects The Great Betrayal by Nick Kyme, Master of Dragons by Chris Wraight, The Curse of the Phoenix Crown by C L Werner.
A cool little add-on next week is the The Horus Heresy Journal - now generally these seem a bit naff, but this one has some nice little timeline details at the bottom of each page and the Eye of Horus at the top of each page. With the 1st anniversary of Alan Bligh's death, this is nicely (if potentially accidentally) timed.
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Vale to you, Alan Bligh, on this anniversary of your passing. Your universe continues unabated! A tireless worker and hobbysist, it seems a fitting tribute that so many cling to his words for the universe they love so much. As times move forward, it will be out job to defend the legacy of his background against Games Workshop's trend of ever changing and retconning of fluff.
In the annals of 40K/ 30K, Alan Bligh shall always stand with the giants like Andy Chamers, Rick Priestly, Jes Goodwin and Jervis Johnson.
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Over the past year or so, there has been a lot of attention paid to the Eldar - new minis for the Harlequins, the introduction of the Ynnari, a brilliant Codex for the Craftworlds and a power boost to the maligned Drukhari. 
Well as we get to the tail end of the 8th Edition Codex releases, it's the Harlequins turn to get a brand new (but smaller than a standard Codex at only 80 pages) Harlequins Codex which comes in both Custard Pie Collectors Edition and Packed Into a Mini Car Standard Edition (left) plus of course the obligatory Data Cards. As well as the Harlequins release, we also get a miniature for all Aeldari factions - the Webway Gate, which looking at the sprues does not have modelling options for Drukhari icons, so really it's not for everyone, is it?
In paperback book releases, The War of Vengeance is a new omnibus with three stories from the Old World; The Great Betrayal by Nick Kyme, Master of Dragons by Chris Wraight, and The Curse of the Phoenix Crown by C L Werner. The two others we spoke about earlier on their hardback release - the Inquisitor novel Vaults of Terra: The Carrion Throne and White Scars in The Last Hunt.

Forge World are at it again, this time deleting more from their Horus Heresy range - including the almost the entire MKII Space Marine range and many weapons sets, mainly the older Legion range. Some of the weapon sets make sense, as they now appear in the plastic boxed sets for Horus Heresy - the Tigrus and Phobos Pattern Bolters and Flamers for example - but if you want to build a  Heavy Flamer or Missile Launcher-armed Heavy Support Unit, you are going to need to buy a fair few boxes to get enough to arm one squad. Also disappearing are the older pattern Volkite Culverin, and Legion Pattern Rotor Cannons, Las Cannon, Mutli-Meltas and Plasma Cannon sets. Sadly the Cataphractii and Tartaros Terminator sets are also getting the chop, as are the Umbra, Seeker and Ferrox Pattern Bolters. Also of note are the Bolt Pistol sets which also add much needed kit around the waist of your forces.
Now, as we said earlier this week, this is an odd move considering how MKII is currently prominent in the marketing for the New Horus Heresy book, Malevolence.
Everyone on the net seems to be an expert on this, and frankly their voice is often wrong and unhelpful.
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So lets delve a little deeper:
Are Forge World just deleting old stock that doesn't sell? Maybe!
Are Forge World deleting stock that is being impacted by recasters? Potentially - that's smart if you want to weed out people who are using recast stuff, but now you have opened a legitimate market for recasters!
In terms of business, this is crazy! We have already seen hardened anti-recast bloggers state that this leaves them only one option - and that is to buy product not manufactured by Forge World. The Community itself is now in opposition to the manufacturer which creates a lack of trust and stability AND loyalty.
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The other two options these armchair blogging experts aren't even considering ...
1) Could Forge World be changing the resin used in their weapon sets? There is better resin for smaller items and maybe this is where they will start. Neo-Resin is one such material.
​2) Could Forge World be moving towards clam-packed plastic weapons sets? Let's hope so!
These would be easier, cheaper to mass produce, all on one sprue like the old days AND they could be carried in store by Games Workshop. We have already seen the very successful move to use these EXACT weapons in plastic Horus Heresy sets from Games Workshop as we said above. This latest cull sees SOME duplication deleted between the GW and the Forge World range, so bringing out dedicated heavy weapons sets for Games Workshop to sell in store makes sense - doesn't mean it'll happen, but it just makes sense. 
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​Let us know what you think. Let's open up a dialogue and be constructive.

With Forge World deleting all of the MKII Space Marine upgrade kits from their site, it is not without some irony that their next Horus Heresy book - Malevolence - that was previewed at Warhammer Fest this weekend, featured a number of images not only showing the now out-of-favour MKII armour prominently, but also showing the now-deleted upgrade sets.
Case in point, by the time this book is released, the White Scars Upgarde Set will be impossible to buy! It does seem however that the MKII helmets and MKIII shoulder pads will stay in stock - but for how long?
The deletion of these upgrade sets continues to cause outrage in the Horus Heresy Community and still no official word from Forge World or Games Workshop about why or if there is a guarantee of future supply.

th a flurry of fast attack, the Idoneth Deepkin wave comes to an end. If we follow the usual pattern for Games Workshop, they will never be heard of again, but hopefully these amazingly detailed models will occasionally pop up in a White Dwarf now and then.
For now lets take a look at the Akhelian Allopex which comes with alternate heads for the shark and alternate weapons for the driver. Again some throwbacks to the Dark Eldar in it's function but they're not cheap per model, so here's hoping you don't need tonnes of them. The other fast attack is the dynamic Akhelian Ishlaen Guard / Akhelian Morrsarr Guard combi-kit. Again not a cheap kit, but unlike many of the Deepkin kits you will get some spare parts for your bitz box. Of course we also get the last of the art cards for anyone ordering online, with Art Card 5 - Akhelian Leviadon on offer.
The Hobbit gets two news kits that can really only be described as cannon fodder for Orcs - the non-canon Hobbit Shirrifs and Farmer Maggot & Hounds who at least did appear in the book.
Speaking of books, The Horus Heresy: Wolfsbane tells the story of the Emperor's two wolves - Horus and Russ going toe to toe... or paw to paw. Salamanders: The Omnibus is a great value tome that includes the novels Salamander, Firedrake and Nocturne plus some additional short stories.
In audio books, the next Blackshields release is on it's way with The Red Fief continuing the story told in The False War which was basically a long argument amongst the Blackshields and got pretty old pretty fast! Hopefully this one is more entertaining.

With Solo: A Star Wars Story only a week or so away, I was having a look at the costumes for the upcoming film and spotted a new favourite - the Mud Trooper! Stupid name, but the costume harks back to some past costumes and it got a few of us thinking...

​We know that Han Solo joins the Empire, so are we seeing the first shots of an Imperial Army trooper? 
The Imperial Navy have troops - we see them on the Death Star dressed in black (below) - so are the Mud Troopers in fact what the Imperial Army looked like before the widespread introduction of Stormtroopers?

Further to that, are the Mimban Stormtroopers (above right) the first incarnation of Stormtroopers that took to the field for the Empire? You may notice that their helmets are slightly different to regular Stormtroopers, with extra armour on the forehead similar to the extra armour we saw on the Tank Trooper in Rogue One.
Rogue One takes place at least a decade after Solo, so evolution of the armour would make sense, as would the phasing out of specialist Stormtrooper roles as the Empire amalgamates into a more harmonious military machine.
The big question we take out of this is does General Veers wear an Imperial Army uniform when he takes to ground combat AND is there any link to Dengar the bounty hunter's costume (below left)? \
Dengar does have an important difference, he wears the leg and lower arm armour of a Stromtrooper, but his breastplate is certainly very similar to the Mudtrooper or even the Snow Trooper (below right).

Whatever the actual story is, the way the costume designers have carried the lineage of uniforms through the Empire has been amazing, and to having fans speculating just shows what an amazing living universe Star Wars is!

As the Deepkin releases almost draw to a close, we finally get to see their "tank" - the Akhelian Leviadon, a large turtle with a Dark Eldar Ravager on it's back! And at twice the price of a Ravager, there goes the conversion idea of mixing those parts! This week sees the second last of the free Deepkin art cards when you order online, this week the Akhelian Allopex, which oddly isn't on pre-order until next week!
Next week also sees the introduction of the Primaris Marines into the hallowed halls of the Deathwatch with a new Codex, in both Rampaging Xenocide Collectors Edition and Paint It Black standard edition. There are of course the requisite Datacards, plus three miniature releases - the Deathwatch Primaris Intercessors, the Deathwatch Primaris Apothecary which all include the new Primaris-scaled Deathatch Upgrade Sprue and the non-Primaris Watch Captain Artemis.  
Warhammer Legends starts next week too, with not only a bevy of classic metal and resin Warhammer miniatures, but also the rules to field them in the new Warhammer Community Legends portal. These minis will only be available for a week, so if you want them - go in! There's the old Dogs of War set Mengil's Manflayers, the resin Morathi, the Hag Sorceress of Ghrond with her cranky horse, Dark Elf Dreadlord on Cold One and Dark Elf Sorceress on Cold One as well as the metal Lokhir Fellheart, Krakenlord of Karond Kar, Dreadlord with Great Weapon and the Dreadlord. it shoul dbe said that some of these had been available recently on the webstore, but have now had a price bump as they are in Made To Order! The Mehgil's Manflayers are exciting to see and at a decent priced too - especially if, as we hope, other Dogs of War units will also get re-released at this price point!
Something else of note - notice how they use the term "Dark Elves" not the newer term "Dark Aelves"!
Also next week is the The Doom Lords Paint Bundle for the minis that are actually released today... odd!
No books this week, but if you didn't see this on our Facebook, then Forge World are cutting almost their entire line of Space Marine Upgrade sets! Who knows what is going on there - hopefully plastics! This is Forge World's bread and butter, so it's an interesting move by them.