The Orks are the last of the Xenos races to get a Codex release for the latest edition of Warhammer 40K. Some would say that this means that the new edition is right around the corner - but would we ever be so cynical?
The Codex is available in the usual flavours; the 'Uman Jam Collectors Edition and the Stompy Stomp standard edition. In terms of miniatures, this release is based around Speed Freeks - the boxed game from last week. The emphasis on mobility is writ large with four new vehicles; Megatrakk Scrapjet, Boomdakka Snazzwagon, Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy and the Deffkilla Wartrike. There's also an amazingly detailed terrain piece, the Mekboy Workshop, plus the usual themed Dice and Data Cards. As well as the new stuff we have pretty much the entire Ork range reboxed - minus some so we assume there will be more next week - the Ork Warbiker Mob, the resin Ork Kommandos and resin Ork Tankbustas, Ork Warboss Grukk's Boss Mob (you can also get the Nobz without him), the Ork Lootas/ Burna Boyz combi-kit (the best heads of almost any Ork kit out there), the excellent Ork Stormboyz, plus the venerable Ork Boyz kit with lots of great bits and packed with character. Speaking of character, the old Ork Gretchin kit is back, plus if you want to take a punt on Orks but you're not sure, the Easy To Build: Ork Boyz is around - also a great way to get alternative heads. To lead your Ork WAAARGH why not consider Ghazghkull Thraka? Pair him with the very expensive Ork Nob With Waaagh! Banner (he's the same price as a box of Boyz) and maybe one of a motley crew of characters - an Ork Painboy, the resin Mad Dok Grotsnik or even an Ork Mek.
What's really interesting about this range is the amount of years and editions of 40K it covers. Have a look at how the Orks have changed and also how reasonably priced their units are. Sure you can need a lot of Ork Boyz, but doing so won't break the bank!
Away from Orkiness, Sly Marbo gets an online re-release *yawn*, BUT how cool is this? Realmslayer: A Gotrek Gurnisson Series is back out... WITH BRIAN BLESSED DOING THE VOICE OF GOTREK. By the Gods this is cool. In the world of books, Blacktalon is out for Age of $igmar, the Voice of Mars paperback is also on it's way, as is White Dwarf November 2018. Now we still haven't received last month's White Dwarf, so any anticipation or interest is well and truly dead on this one!

Painting Monstrous Creatures is not a thing that comes naturally to someone easily distracted by the 'new shiny'. Nor someone lacking discipline - but the Beasts of Chaos Ghorgon was not only a large miniature, but also something I was going to finish before starting anything else - and what a fateful decision that was! You see the Ghorgon is not only large... but PACKED with detail. It's actually an excellent model, beautifully done, with more skulls than an Undead army and more leather straps than a Slaanesh meet and greet.
There's also a lot of alternate parts - from hands to forearm armour - so I took that extra armour and gave him knee and shoulder armour to give him a heavier appearance. Haven't seen this done before, but I' sure I'm not the first.

The colour of the flesh unites him with the other Beastmen in my force (unit examples below) which is a Celestra Grey base, with a Skavenblight DInge/ Lahmian Medium wash and then progressively lighter Celestra Grey/ Ceramite White highlights. Painting the skin was a pain as I decided to avoid large areas of colour and instead went for a strokes - look closely, it gives texture to something would obviously not be a flat colour. Thought that with the scale of him, the skin needed some sort of texture. The touches of red fabric also unite him with the rest of my force. There is a lot of warm colours on him to contrast with the cool skin colour - the leather, the red fabric, the tongue and then there's touches of cool like the green and purple gems. The leather has had a few comments - this is actually quite simple - Terracotta base, Ratskin Flesh highlights and then a very watered down dark brown wash. It flattens the colours together nicely.
The metals are all rusted with thinned brown paint and some very watery orange in the crevices, but the sharp parts of the blades are clean of rust to show they had been sharpened for war.
-
Overall I'm very happy with the result and would consider doing another, but after a bit of a rest! The Start Collecting Beast of Chaos is excellent value as it comes with this and some troops.

Bit of a small pre-order week today, which could actually be a blessing after the huge Nighthaunt releases for Age of $igmar and Kill Team for 40k - but what would a weekend be without at least something top tempt us. Personally I miss these being first shown in the weekly version of White Dwarf (not that our WD even ever turns up anymore) but the internet is a hungry beast, so here we have it. 
Next week sees the release of a new twist on an old favourite - it's Speed Freeks! Ork Klans via for supremacy around (you have to admit) a rather small area. These minis are really nice, the bikes not straying too far from art we have seen for decades and the buggies are a big improvement on the old model for sure. Apparently the buggies in this set are exclusive to this set, and with only the boxed set being released this weekend and no individual sets, it may be unlikely we know if they are for a while.
By the way, is it just us or does the book's cover art (below) look like Steve Bisley art?
-
In books next week, the Limited Edition Corax: Lord of Shadows hits the shelves as does the Age of $igmar-themed Sacrosanct & Other Stories  plus a timely audio book release, Prophets of Waaagh! with a picture on the cover almost directly copied from a scene out of the newer Mad Max film.
In somewhat more exciting news, the Horus Heresy series is coming to an end (as such) with the Siege of Terra finally beginning. Next week sees the beginning of that part of the story arc with The Horus Heresy: Heralds of the Siege a collection of short stories - some in print for the first time and others were originally released as audio dramas.
-
is it an exciting pre-order week? No - but it's one week closer to the glory of Slaanesh!

Hasbro have just announced part of their new War on Cybetron Siege line up will include some new Micro Master 2-packs, and by the look of it they have taken some inspiration from two other Hasbro lines - G.I.Joe and MASK. Have a look at Swindler (below left) and Stormcloud (below right) then have a look at the MASK vehicle Thunderhawk and the Night Raven from the G.I.Joe line.

Although not exactly the same, there does seem to be some serious inspiration. This is of course not the first time these properties have crossed over - in 2008 G.I.Joe brought out a Matt Trakker figure and in 2015 Transformers released a figure, Viper, based on the Cobra Rattler from G.I. Joe.

These crossovers are great fun - and for fans of the franchises a great addition to their collections!

​Kill Team - elite squads of troops pitted against each other, and this week Games Workshop have introduced the Commanders Expansion Boxed Set, which includes a 120 page book, 33 Universal Commander Tactics cards (7 cards covering the psychic powers from the book, along with Psybolt from the Kill Team Core Manual), 20 blank Commander datacards, a double-sided Commander token sheet.  
To go with this boxed set are Commanders for each faction - Ankra the Colossus Necron Commander, Feodor Lasko Astra Militarum Commander, Fireblade Twinflame T’au Empire Commander, Gaius Acastian Deathwatch Commander, Gitzog Wurldkilla Ork Commander, Magos Dalathrust Adeptus Mechanicus Commander, Torrvald Orksbane Adeptus Astartes and Vysa Kharavyxis Drukhari Commander. Each Commander is moulded in this new coloured platsic GW are using and come with a datacard, a skill tree card, 5 Tactics Cards (including 2 Tactics exclusive to this set) plus a sheet of tokens for use in games of Kill Team. Kill Team seems like Necromunda for 40K, so should make people pretty happy!
Away from 40K, last week we saw some cool new teams for Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault, well this week you can get some card sleeves for those factions - the Eyes of the Nine and Zarbag’s Gitz. 
In books, the next Primarch book is out - Vulkan: Lord of Drakes. There's been some good press about some of these, so be interesting to see the verdict on this one too. 

For some extremely odd reason I have been thinking about some of the Specialist units for the War Hounds Legion. Not really sure why - I mean I have enough infantry still to paint, but this entered my mind. Maybe it's because I want the Specialist units to have slightly different markings and I want to explore that. Already the Scimitar pilot has the markings, so why not expand it a bit - thus this Destroyer guy. Now firstly, I'm not convinced the War Hounds would have used Destroyers, in fact they seem like the type of Legion that would shun them, but you never know.

I knew right away that I didn't want the ruined armour, but I did want to have some effect on their armour from the specialist weapons - no paint chips, but something. Considering the War Hounds were a very chivalrous if violent Legion, their armour would be clean at least! Here I opted for some Brown washes in the recesses and around bolts to show there had been some wear. The helmet is an Iron Warriors one and I really like the design but it may not fit the Legion. Here you could argue that he looks like a Chaplain, but the thought was the unit would be themed around the idea of death - skulls etc!
Now the Specialist markings I mean are the shoulder pads - notice the blue bars on the side of the markings. This is on both shoulders and will differentiate them from normal units. Possibly the best Bronze shoulder trims I've ever done BTW! Happy with those. There's a bit of neatening up to do on some of the paint, but overall he's done.
Ss the Specialist units start to take shape. I doubt I will do anther Destroyer - it was more a fun test.

We're going to show our bias today and start the preview with the new Warhound Titan for Adeptus Titanicus. This has ALWAYS been a favourite, so it's release not only spells the end of the Titanicus release that we have seen, it also means that the process of painting up a few of these begins. Luckily the Warhound comes in a two-pack, and by the picture (right) they are very much like the original metal Epic scale and are tiny!! To command your Warhound pups there is also the Warhound Scout Titan Command Terminal Pack - why include the means of paying them with the miniatures when you can sell them separately, right? With way too much written about these awesome minis lets move onto some Age of $igmar with new minis for Warhammer Underworlds - this week it's teams for Tzeentch with ​The Eyes of the Nine and the Goblins with Zarbag’s Gitz. Zarbag’s Gitz is a great set of amazing looking characters, including a very Brian Froud looking armoured Goblin. The Eyes of Nine is a bit disappointing, despite the inclusion of a female Tzeentch Cultist! The requisite themed dice for Zarbag’s Gitz and The Eyes of Nine (incredibly similar to the Thorns of the Briar Queen Dice Pack)are also on pre-order. Interestingly after the success of the Kill Team Carry Case, guess what? There's an Underworlds Nightvault Carry Case too. These disappear very quickly BTW. There's also the re-release of Steelheart’s Champions and Garrek’s Reavers for Underworlds: Nighthaunt, but if you do won them already you can just buy the Underworlds: Nightvault – Echoes of Glory cards. It's the third time these minis have been released, so just release the cards and make it simple please.
In books we have a few items actually, The Beast Arises: Volume 1 (which is an omnibus of the first four books and well worth a read!), Gotrek and Felix: The First Omnibus (which includes the first three William King Gotrek & Felix  novels plus five additional short stories), Horus Heresy: Shattered Legions (which includes ten short stories including the novella The Seventh Serpent which revisits the ragtag crew of the starship Sisypheum) and Book 2 of the Dark Imperium trilogy Plague War.
It's a Made To Order week too with Galrauch (a Chaos dragon kit well over 30 years old),  Throgg the ogre which is an amazing kit only let down by not having an army to lead, the Skaven Plague Lord Nurglitch and two Beastmen models - Morghur, Master of Skulls and Khazrak the One-eye.