Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon Unboxing – 1 May 2026







Do we think they'll have all the technical issues sorted out for this livestream?

Blurry pictures of the gravis heavy bolters confirmed!

 LunarSol wrote:
Blurry pictures of the gravis heavy bolters confirmed!

Complete with Blood Angels appropriate blue helmets!

I for one am stroked

Preview potato photos!

Can make out something around 20ish spacemarine minis there?

Really hope this preview answers the question about whether or not Crusade survives into 11th. I don't really care about any of the models in this box, so it's literally the only thing I want to know.

beast_gts wrote:
Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon Unboxing – 1 May 2026


Do we think they'll have all the technical issues sorted out for this livestream?

They were taking the piss out of themselves with the video, done as an old-timey silent movie and ending with the strapline "With Sound!*"
"*Probably"

Librarian, Ancient and Gravis bolt unit is confirmed from the pics of the space marine half though.

 PenitentJake wrote:
Really hope this preview answers the question about whether or not Crusade survives into 11th. I don't really care about any of the models in this box, so it's literally the only thing I want to know.

I'm not sure why it wouldn't. They are the primary filler books in the release schedule and generally sell well from what I can tell.

 LunarSol wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:
Really hope this preview answers the question about whether or not Crusade survives into 11th. I don't really care about any of the models in this box, so it's literally the only thing I want to know.

I'm not sure why it wouldn't. They are the primary filler books in the release schedule and generally sell well from what I can tell.

I don't think this preview will, but perhaps an FAQ released later might. I can't see a generic crusade element in the rulebook given the current codices have it, so in a pure review of the box it seems unlikely.

 Tastyfish wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:
Really hope this preview answers the question about whether or not Crusade survives into 11th. I don't really care about any of the models in this box, so it's literally the only thing I want to know.

I'm not sure why it wouldn't. They are the primary filler books in the release schedule and generally sell well from what I can tell.

I don't think this preview will, but perhaps an FAQ released later might. I can't see a generic crusade element in the rulebook given the current codices have it, so in a pure review of the box it seems unlikely.

I’ve not looked at crusade much in 10th, but IIRC a chunk of the leviathan core book included a whole crusade section (that was later sold separately)

In an unboxing video they could absolutely pull out a massive tome and let us know it’s got all the core rules, background fluff, and a full copy of crusade:armageadon.

 LunarSol wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:
Really hope this preview answers the question about whether or not Crusade survives into 11th. I don't really care about any of the models in this box, so it's literally the only thing I want to know.

I'm not sure why it wouldn't. They are the primary filler books in the release schedule and generally sell well from what I can tell.

Because GW have carefully mentioned crusade a total of 0 times in the discourse of 11th and instead mentioned "narrative" in the context of rolling it into matched play missions and terrain layouts. They've got as close as possible to saying it's gone without saying it.

Purely based on how they're talking through the narrative aspects, it seems like Crusade isn't separate any more? Who knows!

By not making it central they can sell you a Crusade book in six months and then individual Crusade supplements for each faction etc or Warzone type supplements that have the same "narrative" leaning. Core rulebook is minimum viable product, everything else is DLC.

 NAVARRO wrote:
Preview potato photos!

Can make out something around 20ish spacemarine minis there?

Auspex Tactics has a decent breakdown of the pics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeJqCtJ-mL8

Looks like 10 Intercessors, 5 VanVets, 3 Gravis Devastators, Jump Chaplain, Captain, Ancient, Librarian, plus potentially also the not at all pictured Land Speeder.

Any objection to making this the XIth edition news and rumor thread and closing the other one?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Any objection to making this the XIth edition news and rumor thread and closing the other one?

At 348 pages I think the other thread can be successfully put to rest.

 Olthannon wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Any objection to making this the XIth edition news and rumor thread and closing the other one?

At 348 pages I think the other thread can be successfully put to rest.

Agreed. The (presumably) final release of 10th Edition is up for pre-order, so we may as well mark the occasion.

And done, welcome one and all to the 11th edition news and rumors thread!

I liked the goonhammer take on the yarrick story.

"It took me a minute to realize what this story was telling because of the way it was being told. But once you strip away the overly grimdark technogothic exterior of 40K from the tale, you can see it: Yarrick is trying to place a pre-order for the 11th Edition Starter Box and the Orks are trying to stop him. And once he places the preorder, it takes weeks for him to arrive to add the new Space Marines to his army."

Long live the new thread!!

Even though I'm not in for the new box this time around its going to be interesting to see how it turns out!

 Overread wrote:
Long live the new thread!!

Even though I'm not in for the new box this time around its going to be interesting to see how it turns out!

I'm currently on the fence. Gonna wait for the full unboxing before I truly decide.

I've still got about 3 starter-boxes-worth of space marines that I haven't got round to painting. I really don't need any more!

Crispy78 wrote:
I've still got about 3 starter-boxes-worth of space marines that I haven't got round to painting. I really don't need any more!

Rookie numbers, you gotta pump those number up.

Crispy78 wrote:
I've still got about 3 starter-boxes-worth of space marines that I haven't got round to painting. I really don't need any more!

But if you get these new ones you'll get all the motivation you need to build them and your backlog!!

lord_blackfang wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
I've still got about 3 starter-boxes-worth of space marines that I haven't got round to painting. I really don't need any more!

Rookie numbers, you gotta pump those number up.

Overread wrote:

Crispy78 wrote:
I've still got about 3 starter-boxes-worth of space marines that I haven't got round to painting. I really don't need any more!

But if you get these new ones you'll get all the motivation you need to build them and your backlog!!

Nothing sucks the energy out of old projects like new shiny projects. NOW is the time to wrap up the old stuff. Before the new shiny takes all the spotlight.

 Nevelon wrote:

Nothing sucks the energy out of old projects like new shiny projects. NOW is the time to wrap up the old stuff. Before the new shiny takes all the spotlight.

Tell that to my LI Army which was the new shiny and currently looks more like a collection of soulblight models

 Nevelon wrote:

Nothing sucks the energy out of old projects like new shiny projects. NOW is the time to wrap up the old stuff. Before the new shiny takes all the spotlight.

Yep. I'm currently painting the Leviathan terminators as I promised myself that I finish them before getting the new box.

I'm waiting to see what Orks get in the box.

I play Marines and Orks so its something of a no brainer. I'd probably be a lot less likely to pick it up for just the marines personally but mostly because I really don't need a whole box of marines after all the boxes of marines I've got.

 Insularum wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
Preview potato photos!

Can make out something around 20ish spacemarine minis there?

Auspex Tactics has a decent breakdown of the pics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeJqCtJ-mL8

Looks like 10 Intercessors, 5 VanVets, 3 Gravis Devastators, Jump Chaplain, Captain, Ancient, Librarian, plus potentially also the not at all pictured Land Speeder.

Sounds about right. Seems like a safe bet model wise but curious about the land speeder.
Its weird discontinuing the Intercessors kit to redo intercessors, I hope they dont fall into the trap of snap fit only models and we never get multipart.

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Insularum wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:
Preview potato photos!

Can make out something around 20ish spacemarine minis there?

Auspex Tactics has a decent breakdown of the pics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeJqCtJ-mL8

Looks like 10 Intercessors, 5 VanVets, 3 Gravis Devastators, Jump Chaplain, Captain, Ancient, Librarian, plus potentially also the not at all pictured Land Speeder.

Sounds about right. Seems like a safe bet model wise but curious about the land speeder.
Its weird discontinuing the Intercessors kit to redo intercessors, I hope they dont fall into the trap of snap fit only models and we never get multipart.

Back when intercessors first came out they were only snapfit as part of the 9th(?) ed box set, but the multi-part came out after. I bet it'll be the same here.

Same with the gravis devastators, I would expect single loadout snapfit minis and then a multi-part kit later. Same way eradicators were when they came out.

Intercessors were 8th and Assault Intercessors in 9th.

Intercessors got gradually added to with various Chapter-upgrade sprues over the course of 8th adding Power Weapon, Power Fist, etc. options for the Sergeant and the multi-part kit shortly after launch added the underslung Grenade Launcher that wasn't on the push-fit (though it was trivial to convert).

On the other hand, Outriders were in the 9th edition box and never got a multi-part kit nor any equipment options.

 Asmodai wrote:
On the other hand, Outriders were in the 9th edition box and never got a multi-part kit nor any equipment options.

And it's a remarkably terrible kit because of it. I missed out on Indomitus and so was gravely disappointed when I bought the Outriders box and found there is literally not a single option, not even a helmet for the Sergeant. I had to use a spare.

It really does not compare well to the bike kits of most other factions, except in size I suppose.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:
On the other hand, Outriders were in the 9th edition box and never got a multi-part kit nor any equipment options.

And it's a remarkably terrible kit because of it. I missed out on Indomitus and so was gravely disappointed when I bought the Outriders box and found there is literally not a single option, not even a helmet for the Sergeant. I had to use a spare.

It really does not compare well to the bike kits of most other factions, except in size I suppose.

Even the chaos bikers?

Dudeface wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:
On the other hand, Outriders were in the 9th edition box and never got a multi-part kit nor any equipment options.

And it's a remarkably terrible kit because of it. I missed out on Indomitus and so was gravely disappointed when I bought the Outriders box and found there is literally not a single option, not even a helmet for the Sergeant. I had to use a spare.

It really does not compare well to the bike kits of most other factions, except in size I suppose.

Even the chaos bikers?

At least the Chaos Bikers are multi-part and easy to include options from the Legionaries kit.

Eh. It is pretty trivial to swap an outrider arm or head, and a bike riding body has by necessity rather limited poses to begin with. It is just that in the rules the unit has no equipment options, so there is not that much you can do. But sure, a multipart kit would be an improvident, but only a marginal one if the rules remained the same.

 Crimson wrote:
Eh. It is pretty trivial to swap an outrider arm or head, and a bike riding body has by necessity rather limited poses to begin with. It is just that in the rules the unit has no equipment options, so there is not that much you can do. But sure, a multipart kit would be an improvident, but only a marginal one if the rules remained the same.

Ruleswise: If they are taking out the option of the ATV to tag along, that leaves the squad rather unidimensional in purpose. They need, minimum, the option of the squad sergeant to take a plasma pistol, upgraded CCW, or BOTH. One guy in the squad with an upgraded ranged weapon of some kind would be nice. And dare I hope, the return of the attack bike in it's wonderful 3-wheel form (that would even calm us down from the loss of the ATV, as we could counts-as).

GW is somehow managing to sell me yet another flag guy, after the third or so I've painted and the second I am currently willing to use on the TT (pic related).

Dudeface wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:
On the other hand, Outriders were in the 9th edition box and never got a multi-part kit nor any equipment options.

And it's a remarkably terrible kit because of it. I missed out on Indomitus and so was gravely disappointed when I bought the Outriders box and found there is literally not a single option, not even a helmet for the Sergeant. I had to use a spare.

It really does not compare well to the bike kits of most other factions, except in size I suppose.

Even the chaos bikers?

Bikers coming to mind is specifically why I said "most" rather than "all".

 RaptorusRex wrote:
GW is somehow managing to sell me yet another flag guy, after the third or so I've painted and the second I am currently willing to use on the TT (pic related).

By my count, there are no fewer than SEVEN Space Marine Ancient minis available, including three that are Chapter-specific (one for Black Templars and two for Ultramarines).

 BorderCountess wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
GW is somehow managing to sell me yet another flag guy, after the third or so I've painted and the second I am currently willing to use on the TT (pic related).

By my count, there are no fewer than SEVEN Space Marine Ancient minis available, including three that are Chapter-specific (one for Black Templars and two for Ultramarines).

Yeah, I'm not complaining as someone who loves to freehand banners, but there certainly is a lot of flag guys.

 BorderCountess wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
GW is somehow managing to sell me yet another flag guy, after the third or so I've painted and the second I am currently willing to use on the TT (pic related).

By my count, there are no fewer than SEVEN Space Marine Ancient minis available, including three that are Chapter-specific (one for Black Templars and two for Ultramarines).

Hopefully 11th sees the return of Brother Bethor, the OG Ancient.

GW is over-compensating for taking away the glory of the back banner/

Mordian Glory rumor:

There will be a MAX unit coherency of 9 inches. In other words, no model in your unit can be more than 9 inches way from any other model in your unit. No more conga-lines of guys.




Also suspicions that the Taurox and Leman Russ will be going to Legends

that'd make ork and tyranid armies problematic.

 gigasnail wrote:
that'd make ork and tyranid armies problematic.

A unit of 20 guys, all on 25mm bases, would max out at 28 inches wide under current coherency rules (and be hella vulnerable to loosing coherency). Realistically I'd put a unit like that at around 20 inches wide. Under these proposed changes they'd max-out at about 11 inches. So, yeah, a bit more condensed.

And if there were units to get an exception to a 9” coherency rule, tyranid horde gribbles and ork boys would probably be at the top of the list to get one. If normal is 9, I could see them getting 12.

Every rule gets exceptions somewhere.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Leman Russ will be going to Legends

That would be nuts. Though trimming the turret options makes sense.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Mordian Glory rumor:

There will be a MAX unit coherency of 9 inches. In other words, no model in your unit can be more than 9 inches way from any other model in your unit. No more conga-lines of guys.




Also suspicions that the Taurox and Leman Russ will be going to Legends

I'm okay with conga lines going away; they feel too gamey and try-hardy to me. The Taurox being replaced by the Centaur feels... fine? But I can't imagine squatting the Leman Russ.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Leman Russ will be going to Legends

That would be nuts. Though trimming the turret options makes sense.

Yeah, the Leman Russ is pretty damn iconic to the IG line. I get there's a lot of competing chassis nowadays but I'd figure they'd legend the artillery units first before the Leman Russ given how GW doesn't know how to balance indirect weapons. Losing the LR would be a big blow to a lot of Armoured Company guard players.

Taurox I can see being legend'ed given the Hippogryph and Centaur ATV's step a fair bit on its shoes.

Surely the Leman Russ can't get consigned to history? Or was the Rogal Dorn the Primaris Russ? Thinking about it, it might actually be true. The 2 new Guard vehicles take their design cues from the Rogal Dorn, not the Russ. Meanwhile, the Heresy era Russ got a new kit which is vastly better than the WH40k version (but which wasn't intended to be used in WH40k).

If this is correct, then I think the Chimera will also get the chop. It's never been a very good design, and it will look very out of place next to the newer vehicles.

What I'm most worried about is that the starter troops units (Intercessors for the Marines, Boyz for the Orks) will, in the box, get bog standard gun loadouts, and then when those kits release separately, they'll include another sprue with the special weapons like they did with the Termagants. And of course, that means your starter units are chumped compared to the full box units since all options are free now. That one made me very salty with 10th and is a (small) part of the reason I ended up selling my Nids. Absolutely predatory on GW's part.

And for the love of the Emperor, they had better NOT squat the Leman Russ Battle Tank. That machine is an iconic part of the Astra Militarum range, kind of like Crisis suits are for Tau or the Wave Serpent for Aeldari. I could see a new kit coming out for it that updates the aesthetic somewhat, but it just doesn't seem like they would just straight up delete it from the range. Tauroxes, on the other hand, can get bent. Ugly things. Although I feel bad for anyone with a bunch of them kicking around if they did get the axe.

If they can squat tactical marines then I totally can see the Russ going.

Given that the Russ is the iconic IG battle tank I really can't see it being retired. Maybe the kit will get a refresh. Tacticals are a completely different case. The writing's been in the wall since 8th edition with Firstborn and we've seen Sternguard and Assault Marines get replaced with direct Primaris equivalents and now VV. Anyone expecting Tacticals to survive into 11th was in dreamland.

I don't see the Dorn as an equivalent situation at all. The Dorn fills in the "not quite super-heavy" gap between LR and Baneblade, much like the Land Raider does for SM.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
If they can squat tactical marines then I totally can see the Russ going.

There's a logical in lore and present setting reason for tactical squads going to legends. There isn't anything about a redesign of the russ, a shortage of russ parts, a new mechanicus/guard leader dictating russes go mothball and so on.

I wouldn’t mind a refresh of the Russ chassis. Make the main battle cannon slightly less ridiculously oversized, give the skirts some articulation so it at least looks like there might be some suspension under there, that sort of thing.

 Mr_Rose wrote:
I wouldn’t mind a refresh of the Russ chassis. Make the main battle cannon slightly less ridiculously oversized, give the skirts some articulation so it at least looks like there might be some suspension under there, that sort of thing.

If it's not ridiculously oversized, it's not a Leman Russ.

Personally, if they're tapping into a retro vibe harkening back to 2nd Ed, I'd love a follow up Bunker Assault mission in White Dwarf. The issue with the card bunker was one of my first WDs. The recent MDF ones from TT scratch an itch but I love my card ones.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Mordian Glory rumor:

There will be a MAX unit coherency of 9 inches. In other words, no model in your unit can be more than 9 inches way from any other model in your unit. No more conga-lines of guys.

Oooh nicking rules from OPR? I like what it's aiming to accomplish, even if it doesn't seem practical for large units on GW giganto-bases.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Russ went to Legends and the 40k model was discontinued, with the newer 30K Solar Auxilia model remaining.

Do we know Legends will still be a thing in 11th?

beast_gts wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if the Russ went to Legends and the 40k model was discontinued, with the newer 30K Solar Auxilia model remaining.

Do we know Legends will still be a thing in 11th?

Considering GW management is on a huge "split the product lines" drive I would not expect that at all right now. Unless GW reverses that move they are almost dead set on splitting the lines. About the only army that's new that is bucking that trend is Custodes; everything else is being firmly split. I fully expect in the fullness of time to see Demons do the same thing with perhaps only the Greater Demon models remaining as a cross-game models. Though I'd expect any new named variations that come along to be split.

Dudeface wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
If they can squat tactical marines then I totally can see the Russ going.

There's a logical in lore and present setting reason for tactical squads going to legends. There isn't anything about a redesign of the russ, a shortage of russ parts, a new mechanicus/guard leader dictating russes go mothball and so on.

...yet. We know that GW can - and will - invent lore to back up models. They invented the Primaris BS instead of just saying, "these are properly-scaled Marines" after all.

 BorderCountess wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
If they can squat tactical marines then I totally can see the Russ going.

There's a logical in lore and present setting reason for tactical squads going to legends. There isn't anything about a redesign of the russ, a shortage of russ parts, a new mechanicus/guard leader dictating russes go mothball and so on.

...yet. We know that GW can - and will - invent lore to back up models. They invented the Primaris BS instead of just saying, "these are properly-scaled Marines" after all.

Yes but they didn't just overnight remove core kits, they've taken 9 years getting this far, sp why would they coin flip remove the most iconic guard tank?

My guess is that they want every player(focus on EVERY) to field the new toys. They don't see many games, they wonder why people don't want them without saying they need new stats or options.

As painful as removing units is, I think it is in certain way easier for people to accept with marines. Every starter box will come with marines, so it is is very easy and relatively affordable to end up with a lot of newer marine units. I suspect a most players by now have a bunch primaris units, so even if some of the older units are retired, most of your army still isn't gone. With other factions it doesn't really work like this.

 cuda1179 wrote:


Also suspicions that the Taurox and Leman Russ will be going to Legends

Well. I'll be picking them up for cheap then, hopefully, assuming people will start selling off theirs eventually. Still missing 2 Demolishers, and only have 4 of these bad boys, even after 20 years collecting Guards.

I really liked Commisar Greaves Centaur or whatever that black half track was called. Hoping one can field more than one of those, if I have to get a few. Need to vostroyanize it a little bit though.

Tauox I can see going - it was never the most popular tank. Russ I can see going to legends the same way that zombie dragons went to legends for Soulblight

The zombie dragon went to legends.... at the same time the Dracolich came out which is the very same model concept of an animated undead dragon.

So, looking at the actual quotes from Mordian's video, I'm not going to be looking for mothballs to pack my Russes into yet:

https://youtubetotranscript.com/transcript?v=h5qARZslc5g wrote:
I've had a sickening feeling in my stomach that they're going to get rid of the Leman Russ.
I've no evidence for this whatsoever.
The only evidence I have for it is the Leman Russ is featured in as that we haven't seen anything for the Russ in the Total War trailer. It was all Rogal Dorn [ __ ] If at any of the gameplay trailers that GW's been putting out, we've not seen the Russ featured once, whether it was in that like Tactica's game I think they brought out, um Dawn of War 4 trailers that we've seen, uh Total War stuff. All If you go back and look at all these trailers, none of it had Leman Russ in it. It was just the Rogal Dorn.

....


So I yeah, I I think that there's a non-zero chance the Leman Russ is going to go. I don't know when.
Maybe 11th.
Uh maybe 12th, but um I I don't know.
The big one is the Russ is in heresy now.
If it's in heresy, doesn't What Why would Games Workshop produce two different Russ kits?
Or three even.
Technically because of the the heresy thing.
Russ is all over Space Marine 2 and Darktide. Yeah, those came out um a little while ago now, man.
Those came out Those What Space Marine 2 is like 2 3 years ago now, something crazy.
Wasn't last year. It was befo- it was the year before. I'm pretty sure it was 2024, wasn't it?
I think it was 2024.
2024?
Yeah. Space Marine 2 is uh coming up ne- coming up to 2 years old.
Same with uh Darktide's [ __ ] probably 4 5 years old now, right?
Uh 4 years old. Yeah, Darktide.
I don't think those games can be used as a litmus test anymore.
I don't think they can be.
Uh so we ate I'm on glory I think you're more likely to get a new Russ variant that warrants a new kit. Maybe.
Maybe if big if true.
But strangely it only fills me with a modicum of hope. Because we've ever whenever we see a new kit replace an old kit, the new kit's inferior.
The old kit is the old Russ kit. It's a little rough, but it's very easy to build.
Yeah.
Is Leman Russ legends speculation? It is.
Pure speculation. But if they can if they can legends I mean think of it this way. If they can legends great selling kits like vindicators, which have been selling well in 10th edition. I mean every Space Marine player has run basically two to three of the things. And there's a lot of Space Marine players. Even if you put in Space Marine 2 3 things.
Think of all the predators that have been viable all the way through. You think all of the vindicators. If they can get rid of those things, hm Anyway, let us go back.
That is pure speculation. Let's go back to the rumor.
Uh Primaris stuff.

The Russ moving to Legends is speculation based on it not being in the Total War trailer.

Every edition is accompanied with a doom-train of equal momentum to the hype-train. Until there's actual concrete rumours (like with the Space Marines from Valrak's reliable source), I'm not going to worry about it.


EDIT: Valrak is now saying May 30 pre-order, June 13 release date for the new edition (with some fairly convincing scheduling info from Warhammer World to back it up).

Thanks for the transcript, that Leman Russ rumour seems like a nothingburger then.

I think Valrak rumoured a new battlewagon, glad that I picked one up along with a Taurox to kitbash.

30th of May pre-order puts it straight in the middle of my vacation, will be interesting to see if I can order one from eight time zones away.

The Russ thing is speculation, but I've been having similar thoughts. It definitely is on my "do not buy any more of these" list.

And this is the issue with the unit removal. It used to be super rare for GW to just abandon an unit, but it has become more common recently and if the rumours about the massive marine legending is true, much more common.

And it will make people to hesitate to buy. It might not show on GW's bottom line yet, but at some point it might.

 Crimson wrote:
The Russ thing is speculation, but I've been having similar thoughts. It definitely is on my "do not buy any more of these" list.

And this is the issue with the unit removal. It used to be super rare for GW to just abandon an unit, but it has become more common recently and if the rumours about the massive marine legending is true, much more common.

And it will make people to hesitate to buy. It might not show on GW's bottom line yet, but at some point it might.

Tbh almost every unit should be thoight of like this, none of it is permanent any more.

Dudeface wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
If they can squat tactical marines then I totally can see the Russ going.

There's a logical in lore and present setting reason for tactical squads going to legends. There isn't anything about a redesign of the russ, a shortage of russ parts, a new mechanicus/guard leader dictating russes go mothball and so on.

...yet. We know that GW can - and will - invent lore to back up models. They invented the Primaris BS instead of just saying, "these are properly-scaled Marines" after all.

Yes but they didn't just overnight remove core kits, they've taken 9 years getting this far, sp why would they coin flip remove the most iconic guard tank?

For the same reason they remove anything else - make people buy new stuff.

I think it's reasonable to interpret the Russ not showing up in any of the new boxes or marketing as an indication that the current kit- which unless I missed a refresh, is about twenty years old- is going away.

The real question is whether that means it's getting a new kit or being retired altogether. I'd assume the former if it weren't for the fact that the Hippogriff and Rogal Dorn now cover light tank and heavy tank archetypes, so it seems plausible that GW might just retire the medium tank from the mix and relegate it to another HH-only product.

Edit: The Taurox getting nixed wouldn't surprise me at all though, that thing looks like a kid's toy and putting wheels on it only partially redeems it.

Mordian doesn't have any sources and this is hence mere speculation.

Current Russ came out 2009 for the Demolisher variant, 2010 for the standard one.

It's not going anywhere, thinking its going to be removed is absurd.

Could get a refreshed kit soon though.

Theres a big difference in discontinuing very old kits VS recently released kits, because when you do that to things like the ATV it raises the question why do I even bother buying anything new only to not have time to paint, and enjoy the product on a gaming table because the window is just too short for that. On top of that and this is a MAJOR turn off, your recently purchased £40 kit that was discontinued holds very little value on the second market, no one will want it and you will have to sell it for peanuts.

So yeah people saying its supported in Legends its all good, forget that what was considered a good investment and that minis hold their market value for a long time is simply no more.
People saying GW does that because they want to sell you the new thing... do it too often and people will just move away because you cant keep tricking people.

Dudeface wrote:
Tbh almost every unit should be thoight of like this, none of it is permanent any more.

This. I think all my second edition Stormcast being tossed when AoS launched 4th edition fundamentally changed the way I view warhammer.

Gameplay is now a wholly secondary concern. I only buy something if its aesthetics and coolness alone will be worth the investment, because that is the only thing that can be trusted to last more than a couple of years.

 catbarf wrote:
I think it's reasonable to interpret the Russ not showing up in any of the new boxes or marketing as an indication that the current kit- which unless I missed a refresh, is about twenty years old- is going away.

I find it difficult to know how much to read into GW's promotional pictures. They seem to just prefer showing off newer kits. I think they haven't shown a single picture of the old ork boyz or lootas/burnas since the monopose boyz kit came out five years ago, despite all of them staying in the range until now.

I could also swear that the Leman Russ is more recent than that (at least the kit with all the variations which I cannot name).

 goffnob deffsmakka wrote:


I could also swear that the Leman Russ is more recent than that (at least the kit with all the variations which I cannot name).

2009, so 20 years is genuinely not far off.

That's the only way to do it. Only buy a kit if you like the models enough for the price - don't think about any in game use or rules too much, because that is ultimately transient.

And personally, if you want something in the older 28mm scale instead of the new 32mm scale, get it as soon as you're able to or content yourself with the secondary market or third party alternatives.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 goffnob deffsmakka wrote:


I could also swear that the Leman Russ is more recent than that (at least the kit with all the variations which I cannot name).

2009, so 20 years is genuinely not far off.

The regular and demolisher versions were combined in the same box in 2023.

 Da Boss wrote:
That's the only way to do it. Only buy a kit if you like the models enough for the price - don't think about any in game use or rules too much, because that is ultimately transient.

And personally, if you want something in the older 28mm scale instead of the new 32mm scale, get it as soon as you're able to or content yourself with the secondary market or third party alternatives.

Yeah but thats the thing, unlike the old metals or old historic kits and old hammer etc... the new stuff has none of that baggage and will be simply dumping money into something that when discontinued has no value.
This was common on many other companies lines but old GW minis always hold their value.

Does Mordian Glory actually have any good history regarding rumors and leaks?

After taking a look at his youtube channel, I'm inclined to believe the whole channel deserves to belong in the trash bin.

Personally, I never really sell on my miniatures so I don't worry too much about retaining value. I tend to assume only my very old metals will have any value anyway, plastics I presume I'll certainly be selling at a loss if I ever do.

For me, it's just about if it fits with one of my projects and I like it enough to stomach the GW price. It means I buy a LOT less from them than I used to, but I do still pick up the odd kit here and there.

On the starter, I have Orks as my biggest army but I suspect I'll be skipping this release anyway. The grots look alright, despite their weedy ears, but I'm going to wait and see what the models look like compared to older Ork models before making any decisions.

I'm certainly mulling grabbing a few IG tanks before they get squatted. I've got rid of my new bigger scale guard models now, prefer the old ones.

 NAVARRO wrote:
People saying GW does that because they want to sell you the new thing... do it too often and people will just move away because you cant keep tricking people.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but I think they absolutely can. Their sales model revolves around getting someone in the door, selling them a bunch of stuff to get started, and keeping them hooked for a year or two before most players move on. People like us who build large collections, stay invested over years or decades, post on social media dinosaurs like this forum, and really, genuinely care about the 5+ year horizon for a kit are not the target market. We're just the background infrastructure that maintains a community so new players feel like they'll have someone to play against when they buy in. And I find those new players don't know and don't care if a kit that's a couple of years old, especially if it wasn't popular to begin with, recently got retired.

So for this churn to negatively impact GW's bottom line, it would have to be so bad that it actually kills existing 40K communities, and thus puts off new players from buying into 40K or picking up that shiny new army. But it seems like for most established players, as long as their entire army isn't rendered unplayable overnight, they'll just grumble and accept the suggested counts-as and keep showing up for games. They might feel put off and stop buying new kits, but they weren't buying every new release anyways.

I think GW used the Stormcast refresh as their litmus test. The fact that they were able to squat sub-decade-old core units for the poster boy AOS faction, without provoking any WHFB-End-Times-army-burning in response, showed just how far they can push things. Expect more of this.

I agree 100% with Da Boss: Buy stuff that you like as kits, don't buy it for assumed gameplay relevance in five years' time. We're in an era of TCG-esque constant churn and refresh, paired with game design philosophies (fixed unit sizes, fixed wargear, lack of options) that aren't conducive to using old models as new units. The assumption that GW will try to ensure you can always use your old minis is gone.

You see this a lot but without that community of fans, one of the core pillars of the offering to those new people - that there's a player base out there - is undermined and sales doubtless suffer. GW probably want everyone to be net promotors and probably do want established fans to be at least somewhat happy.

Billicus wrote:
You see this a lot but without that community of fans, one of the core pillars of the offering to those new people - that there's a player base out there - is undermined and sales doubtless suffer. GW probably want everyone to be net promotors and probably do want established fans to be at least somewhat happy.

I agree, I suffered the stormcast fiasco in the flesh and after decades with fantasy minis since WFB etc I decided to move away from all that. Today if a new/potential GW client asks me about AoS, I cannot say anymore, that he can try it out spend the money and if he gets bored of it he can sell his minis for a good value. That was a big sales pitch because it would reduce the risk of burning so much money.

It's not Harsh to say that some think that GW is going this route, it's somewhat predictable but it's not the full angle IMO. New folks will join in if theres a community to help them out, delete that and I cannot say sales numbers and performance will be the same.

Also lets not forget old collectors see a new shiny army and they can sell some of their old stuff and get on board... They are not new clients but Im pretty sure they will buy full new collections on the back of their old stuff and thats part of the sales numbers.

I've never seen kits hold any real value. If value is a concern, the right answer is almost always to not buy in the first place outside of certain bundle deals pieced out later when parts are in demand. Pretty much everything I've ever sold has been at a staggering loss and mostly done to either help someone get started or clean up clutter. The idea of them as an investment feels about as real as the collector coins and plates they used to sell on late night TV.

My perspective has shifted a lot in the last 15+ years. Honestly, a lot of the things being said here are just good advice in general. You shouldn't buy more stuff than you have time to paint or play. If you play a game a month, you're not going to get much use out of 13 armies. Buying more than 2 of any kit is generally a bad idea. If you are worried about getting a decade of value out of a model, start playing it now. I see far too many people buying piles of plastic for someday that never comes.

Focus on the now. Get value now and honestly, no one is showing up at your door to smash your toys. If you're really invested in them, its a lot easier to think of new ways to enjoy them if you have that motivation to do so from years of use.

Very good advice, especially about not sitting on piles of plastic for years.

It's easy to fall into, if you've got money but no time, but it's a bad idea.

Heh. Called out with "you'll get no use out of 13 armies!" but it is kinda true.

 LunarSol wrote:
I've never seen kits hold any real value. If value is a concern, the right answer is almost always to not buy in the first place outside of certain bundle deals pieced out later when parts are in demand. Pretty much everything I've ever sold has been at a staggering loss and mostly done to either help someone get started or clean up clutter. The idea of them as an investment feels about as real as the collector coins and plates they used to sell on late night TV.

My perspective has shifted a lot in the last 15+ years. Honestly, a lot of the things being said here are just good advice in general. You shouldn't buy more stuff than you have time to paint or play. If you play a game a month, you're not going to get much use out of 13 armies. Buying more than 2 of any kit is generally a bad idea. If you are worried about getting a decade of value out of a model, start playing it now. I see far too many people buying piles of plastic for someday that never comes.

Focus on the now. Get value now and honestly, no one is showing up at your door to smash your toys. If you're really invested in them, it's a lot easier to think of new ways to enjoy them if you have that motivation to do so from years of use.

Sorry mate but with all due respect you enjoy your minis the way you see fit and I will do the way I see fit and Mr. Smith will enjoy his way. We all have different focus and they are all valid.
I would say you look into old hammer and other stuff and yeah some metals and kits I have are worth silly money. They were not bought as an investment but they hold their value and thats good it gives me options. Unlike your warmachine minis or other companies that is errrr was a fundamental difference between companies.
Like I said several times, its about what you can do with your collections that gives them more or less value overall... GW discontinuing new kits after a few years reduces value in many ways, some may not affect you personally but thats not the point.

Billicus wrote:
You see this a lot but without that community of fans, one of the core pillars of the offering to those new people - that there's a player base out there - is undermined and sales doubtless suffer. GW probably want everyone to be net promotors and probably do want established fans to be at least somewhat happy.

Right, I guess what I'm saying is that recent experiences suggest GW can get away with an awful lot while still reaching the bar of 'at least somewhat happy', and the attrition rate for unhappy players is low even when they're making fairly drastic changes. The flipside to GW's popularity being dependent on established local communities is that the people in those communities will tolerate an awful lot of bs so long as they can still play, and it takes a lot of discontentment to get a community to jump ship to a less popular game system.

And LunarSol is right, focusing on the here and now is good. A couple of years is a long time if you're playing regularly, rather than weighing whether a pile of shame will still be relevant by the time you actually get through it. It'd be funny if GW's churn works against backlog-stacking FOMO practices, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

With limited runs and special edition models being such a common thing, GW is definitely just as much a collector hobby as it is a building/painting/playing hobby and with that comes a certain expectation that the collection will hold some value, and squatting stuff definitely affects that value (not convinced it's all negative though; scarcity helps surely)

Yeah, some people definitely need to update their priors about GW's strategy (and, tbh, GW's success). The expectation that your models will stay current for a decade or more is not a thing anymore.

GW is a new release company now, not a back catalogue company. They have three main tricks for realizing their brisk release schedule:

1) dredge up units from old lore/old editions
2) invent new things
3) remake things

Number 1 is obviously a finite resource. Numbers 2 and 3 require existing units to be phased out to make new or revamped units relevant and desirable. And supposedly GW is building even more manufacturing capacity that may well be dedicated to even more new releases!

They’ve embraced the churn from every side – the core rules hardware gets redone every 3 years, the mid-edition faction software is constantly patched and remains in a state of flux, and now even models can rotate on roughly the same timeline as editions. GW invented a company-wide “Legends” category (sometimes with the wrapper changed, ie. Kill Team’s “classified” parlance) to manage the decreasing legality of models as it tumbles downwards through tiers.

And all of this is working great. The churn supports a vast commentariat ecosystem. Many items still sell out on release day. In the short-term, GW has no reason to draw back on the firehose strategy. I think we’re witnessing the last few generations of aspirational wargamers who were kids when Warhammer games were at their peak and are now entering their highest-earning years. I don’t think the future is terribly bright for the wargaming industry once the cohort of millennials (that can afford to) have finished actualizing their childhood desires, so GW may as well get while the getting’s good, as they slowly pry open the door to becoming more of an IP licensing company.

 NAVARRO wrote:

I would say you look into old hammer and other stuff and yeah some metals and kits I have are worth silly money. They were not bought as an investment but they hold their value and thats good it gives me options.

That wasn't actually true until recent years, though, after GW's popularity skyrocketed. In the 2000s and 2010s you could buy most OOP models for, like, 25-40% of what the newer versions would cost. Ebay was an endless sea of passé metals available for 5 or 10 bucks a mini. It's only in the last ~6 years that people have begun to treat old models like speculative assets.

 NAVARRO wrote:

GW discontinuing new kits after a few years reduces value in many ways

That remains to be seen. People are more willing to pay high prices for OOP products now than at any point in the past. There are more full-blown "collector" types now (who don't play the game, but want to own items for completionist reasons) than ever before.

You're presenting contradictory claims by saying that many of your old metal models (that currently have no rules, are the wrong size, have the wrong equipment, etc.) are more valuable than ever while also saying that models having no rules/legends rules will make them less valuable.

That's a great summary of where we are. And I'm bang in the demographic you're talking about (aging millennials actualizing childhood dreams).

I mean look at the starter we're discussing - a direct homage to the 2e Armageddon set that many "gamers of a certain age" will have started with.

And as you've mentioned, the strategy appears to be working. I've been through countless discussions of "this time GW have blown it for sure" and we've always been wrong, much as I dislike a lot of the direction of the modern company they're clearly doing a great job at making money and getting people excited.

Pilot Pirx wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

I would say you look into old hammer and other stuff and yeah some metals and kits I have are worth silly money. They were not bought as an investment but they hold their value and thats good it gives me options.

That wasn't actually true until recent years, though, after GW's popularity skyrocketed. In the 2000s and 2010s you could buy most OOP models for, like, 25-40% of what the newer versions would cost. Ebay was an endless sea of passé metals available for 5 or 10 bucks a mini. It's only in the last ~6 years that people have begun to treat old models like speculative assets.

 NAVARRO wrote:

GW discontinuing new kits after a few years reduces value in many ways

That remains to be seen. People are more willing to pay high prices for OOP products now than at any point in the past. There are more full-blown "collector" types now (who don't play the game, but want to own items for completionist reasons) than ever before.

You're presenting contradictory claims by saying that many of your old metal models (that currently have no rules, are the wrong size, have the wrong equipment, etc.) are more valuable than ever while also saying that models having no rules/legends rules will make them less valuable.

Sorry dont want to derail much... but I have been following metal minis for many years and not ALL metal minis hold the same value but tracking down more than a decade some of my minis always been good value... I even sold old old plastic minis for a very good price it's definitely not a 6 year thing at all.

And "remains to be seen" sorry again sold discontinued stromcast for peanuts... its already here and would hate to see it across the board.

Also there no contraditicion the old hammer is a different beast with different baggage like I said previously on this thread and not comparable to new plastic kits that just recently have been discontinued.

I guess its possible GW think the Russ is covered by the Dorn and the Hippogriff(?) - but I don't really see it. The Russ is one of the icons of 40k. If they do scrap it then I suspect it will be because there's a new Russ earmarked for when the Guard codex comes out.

Could be wrong obviously but I don't really see it the same was as tacticals and Intercessors, who are really standing on each others toes. The moment GW releases "tactical intercessors, you can now take a flamer and/or missile launcher", you are at a 1:1 point.

I also don't believe the 9" coherency can be right. I mean yeah, no one likes conga lining - and there have been various steps (to my mind mostly successful?) to remove it.

I guess I could understand making it so models have to be in 9" of all other models in a unit - but it feels a bit... weird and gamey. I mean if I line up 10 marines base to base, is anyone really going to say this is an abusive conga line because the two marines at the ends are 10" apart or something? Its hard to feel like any unit which is base to base can be out of coherency.

Pilot Pirx wrote:
The expectation that your models will stay current for a decade or more is not a thing anymore.

I do wonder if some of this is the whole acceleration of time thing that comes with getting old. It's one thing to expect your models to be current for a decade, its another to recognize that your models are a decade old. My intercessors are nearly a decade old at this point, but it sure doesn't feel like it and they don't appear to be going anywhere.

Perhaps the distance for coherency increases a bit for unit size, similar to how unit coherency is different for smaller squads now.

Maybe your full unit will need to fit under a blast template to be in coherency.

In an unrelated change, they'll be reintroducing templates for blast weapons.

 LunarSol wrote:

Pilot Pirx wrote:
The expectation that your models will stay current for a decade or more is not a thing anymore.

I do wonder if some of this is the whole acceleration of time thing that comes with getting old. It's one thing to expect your models to be current for a decade, its another to recognize that your models are a decade old. My intercessors are nearly a decade old at this point, but it sure doesn't feel like it and they don't appear to be going anywhere.

For sure, that's gotta be an influence on one end.

On the other end, I'd also point to some of the more sinister trends of late-stage corporate capitalism. We've been gradually hammered down into accepting planned obsolescence, rent-seeking and renting-without-owning, subscription models, inexorable <redacted>, etc. as the current way of things. The younger you are the more likely you are to just accept these things as obligatory norms. If you've already been bamboozled into thinking that buying a new phone every few years is meet and good then getting 3 years out of your $100 model kit probably seems fairly expected.

Pilot Pirx wrote:

On the other end, I'd also point to some of the more sinister trends of late-stage corporate capitalism. We've been gradually hammered down into accepting planned obsolescence, rent-seeking and renting-without-owning, subscription models, inexorable <redacted>, etc. as the current way of things. The younger you are the more likely you are to just accept these things as obligatory norms. If you've already been bamboozled into thinking that buying a new phone every few years is meet and good then getting 3 years out of your $100 model kit probably seems fairly expected.

While there are definitely horrors of planned obsolescence in the world, I've been following minis long enough to have seen how these problems evolved out of solutions to problems that existed before to know that a lot of this stuff comes from the demands of a hungry fanbase as much as the voracious mouths of investors. Some of this stuff is the cost of getting what we wanted elsewhere.

As much as we have nostalgia for firstborn, as someone who plays a lot of games, I think its important to recognize that from the outside, they are not really competitive products in the modern age of artisan resins and the like. They are exceptionally functional, but that doesn't matter when you're looking and which of dozens of shiny game lines you want to get into and a decade ago when the primaris were introduced. There was absolutely a need for GW to keep pace with the size and detail of the competition to keep up with the market.

At the same time, GW's game design needed to evolve to keep up with the competition. This is both true mechanically with the advancements in rule templating and resource mechanics pulled in through things like MtG and Eurogames and the ability for online games to fix exploits on the fly. While it has its downsides, I don't imagine 40k surviving things like early 10th Eldar for very long these days. I'm honestly amazed many people put up with D weapons.

Stores can only carry so many options and as much as online stores can manage SKU bloat, they can't provide the environment needed for communities to thrive. Pretty much every game has had to reconcile with the idea that it can't add options forever and continue to keep them in stock. Honestly, that, more than anything else is what Legends is a solution to. These models have rules. They just can't be used in tournaments because it would ALSO really suck if the meta required you to be buying models that haven't been available since 2013 to be competitive.

Mostly I just want to emphasize that as customers, we're not universally losing. It's easy to lose sight of how much better of an experience the game is. To a degree you can see that as "be careful what you wish for" but I prefer to see it as taking stock of what I got out of the bargain.

 LunarSol wrote:
It's easy to lose sight of how much better of an experience the game is.

If you say so...

Yeah that's super subjective. Most peoples' experience of the game in 2026 is having their army invalidated before they've finished fething painting it.

If they’re worried about conga lines, can’t they just up the coherency requirement from 2 to 3 for large units? Not only because it’s difficult to achieve 9” with some units, but measuring and re-measuring that kind of thing to get it right massively slows the game down. That’s why getting rid of templates was a good thing IMHO, as it massively speeded up the game.

Billicus wrote:
Yeah that's super subjective. Most peoples' experience of the game in 2026 is having their army invalidated before they've finished fething painting it.

Unless you are painting Firstborn with the foreknowledge they would eventually be squatted, no, it isn't.

 Jadenim wrote:
If they’re worried about conga lines, can’t they just up the coherency requirement from 2 to 3 for large units? Not only because it’s difficult to achieve 9” with some units, but measuring and re-measuring that kind of thing to get it right massively slows the game down. That’s why getting rid of templates was a good thing IMHO, as it massively speeded up the game.

The way I've seen more and more games handle coherency is that when you move, you pick a leader model and every other model must end within some distance of it. Really cuts down on the amount of measuring needed to ensure everything is in coherency and sets a maximum frontage of two times whatever that radius is plus the width of the base.

Billicus wrote:
Yeah that's super subjective. Most peoples' experience of the game in 2026 is having their army invalidated before they've finished fething painting it.

If you mean “Have rules change that alter how effective some units are or points changes that affect how much you can bring,” sure.
But that’s not invalidation.

 catbarf wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
If they’re worried about conga lines, can’t they just up the coherency requirement from 2 to 3 for large units? Not only because it’s difficult to achieve 9” with some units, but measuring and re-measuring that kind of thing to get it right massively slows the game down. That’s why getting rid of templates was a good thing IMHO, as it massively speeded up the game.

The way I've seen more and more games handle coherency is that when you move, you pick a leader model and every other model must end within some distance of it. Really cuts down on the amount of measuring needed to ensure everything is in coherency and sets a maximum frontage of two times whatever that radius is plus the width of the base.

Yeah and then you just need a simple system of that leader model always being the last in the unit to die. It does help tackle conga-lines and it is a lot simpler to measure to one model instead of going model to model and someone then teasing it all out over a long span over the battlefield.

The only downside is that the leader model is in effect immortal under such a system; but eh that's not a big deal in wargames honestly and can easily be said that "if the unit leader is killed another is nominated that takes their place). Just how rank and file games handle it

Billicus wrote:
Yeah that's super subjective. Most peoples' experience of the game in 2026 is having their army invalidated before they've finished fething painting it.

Maybe its [u]your[i] experience....
But I seriously doubt its most peoples.

Following eagerly.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It's easy to lose sight of how much better of an experience the game is.

If you say so...

Yeah, uh, I'll raise my hand as part of the "does not enjoy 40k trying to become Magic: the Gathering" crowd.

Or, as I figured in another thread, League of Legends.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It's easy to lose sight of how much better of an experience the game is.

If you say so...

Yeah, uh, I'll raise my hand as part of the "does not enjoy 40k trying to become Magic: the Gathering" crowd.

Or, as I figured in another thread, League of Legends.

Yep, its remarkable how much playing 40k has moved away from a 'traditional' wargame experience.

I'm one of those guys who has always liked 40k, but I've never really been much of a wargamer beyond that. So it getting less wargamey and becoming more of a campaign-based, warband style RPG via Crusade's progression system with small starting armies and escalation has been great for me personally... But I know I'm in the minority.

Tbf, it started out as a campaign based warband style RPG, became more wargamey, and has now accommodated that style of play again. Pretty cool really.

We're calling this mess a warband RPG now? What the hell?

Billicus wrote:
We're calling this mess a warband RPG now? What the hell?

I'm not calling stand-alone, 2k, Matched play, pickup games a warband RPG.

But Crusade campaigns that start at 500 pts. and escalate to 3k are VERY different from stand-alone, Matched play pick-up games... Which is what I've been telling people that are disillusioned with stand-alone, matched play pick-up gamers for six years.

If you don't believe it or can't see it, there's probably a good chance you've never played a Crusade escalation campaign. And you're not alone. So few people have taken my advice that we face a real risk of losing Crusade in 11th, and IMHO, it's the only thing that makes the game worth playing at current prices.

Yeah that playstyle is being catered to a little bit but they're absolutely focused on the big tournaments, with all the balance patches and errata and etc and through the choices of what to cover and push on their socials. It isn't "becoming more of a campaign-based, warband style RPG". It's got some optional content in that vein that only a few people use, that is by all accounts going away in 11th.

There's actually a ton of non tournament content released all the time. Players just largely ignore it and bemoan the lack of it in the same breath.

Every codex has campaign rules, the latest scenario deck has cards with asymmetric missions and we're just wrapping up 4 books who definitely aren't being purchased for tournament play.

People will see that and say it "doesn't count" and tell you "no one plays that stuff" and not even try to play the stuff they claim they want. This stuff is absolutely out there you just have to put time into it and show up. If anything drives catering to tournament play, its the simple fact that people vote with their feet and show up to play at those events.

 LunarSol wrote:
There's actually a ton of non tournament content released all the time. Players just largely ignore it and bemoan the lack of it in the same breath.

Every codex has campaign rules, the latest scenario deck has cards with asymmetric missions and we're just wrapping up 4 books who definitely aren't being purchased for tournament play.

People will see that and say it "doesn't count" and tell you "no one plays that stuff" and not even try to play the stuff they claim they want. This stuff is absolutely out there you just have to put time into it and show up. If anything drives catering to tournament play, its the simple fact that people vote with their feet and show up to play at those events.

Ok, I'll have to counter this:

Every codex has crusade rules which appears to be a discontinued game mode in 11th.

The latest deck is the chapter approved mission deck, which is sold as "An essential tool-kit for creating Matched Play missions on the fly" which matched play isnt directly competitive, but the line is so thin and blurred it might as well be. Yes there are asymmetrical cards, but most people likely never tried them due to the community led normative behaviour.

The last 4 campaign books are an extremely small print run. I dont have any of them at present, how many can I buy for my casual games in 2 months time? Probably none? Interestingly they're also not listed under rules and codex in the 40k section of the webstore, whilst dice are.

GW is absolutely shaping a narrative (lol) to direct people away from any of the narrative oriented products and it works. It's equally fruitless telling people "but the rules are there, try harder" when as you note people attend tournament events because it's got explicit framework and simple expectations. Never mind the fact my hobby doesn't want to be nagging people to play a 15 game series of crusade rules with a load of book keeping they don't care for.

 LunarSol wrote:
There's actually a ton of non tournament content released all the time. Players just largely ignore it and bemoan the lack of it in the same breath.

Every codex has campaign rules, the latest scenario deck has cards with asymmetric missions and we're just wrapping up 4 books who definitely aren't being purchased for tournament play.

People will see that and say it "doesn't count" and tell you "no one plays that stuff" and not even try to play the stuff they claim they want. This stuff is absolutely out there you just have to put time into it and show up. If anything drives catering to tournament play, its the simple fact that people vote with their feet and show up to play at those events.

The pace of Crusade supplements released has exceeded my group's ability to play through them, so no complaints there.

We've also just got a ton of further content released with the end of campaign supplements. The Vespator map campaign and a Boarding Actions mini-campaign, Crucible custom character creation rules, etc. with the expanded vehicle rules just around the corner.

I kinda wish 10th had an extra year just to explore all of it - though fortunately it looks like 11th will be mostly backwards compatible anyway.

It's certainly the best edition for supporting non-competitive game modes since 2nd.

I'll also be completely honest and say that I don't think Crusade is very well thought through.

For example, it has lots of shiny special faction rules in the codex books... but those rules are more decoration than substance. A GSC player and a Tau player fighting a Crusade campaign against each other, using their Crusade mechanics, will see both players conquer worlds or even star systems, but not the worlds you're actually fighting over. The opposing player does not interact with, or may not even be aware of the planets the Tau player may be trying to integrate using their Crusade mechanics. The GSC player may be trying to overthrow their home world, a world the Tau has no relation to or way to interact with, despite being the actual opponent. This doesn't feel all that tempting compared to, say, the more involved campaign mechanics laid out in the Horus Heresy black books.

Another big chunk of Crusade is focused on stacking various powerful upgrades on your units as you go, which again is shiny and flashy and all, but creates as many problems as it solves, especially since it results in so many potential places for things to break.

I really hope they do something with Crusade, as its my favorite game mode, and while I doubt they will I wish they'd go back to REAL narrative stuff not just "Matched Play games with tracking XP" which is bland and boring.

Dudeface wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
There's actually a ton of non tournament content released all the time. Players just largely ignore it and bemoan the lack of it in the same breath.

Every codex has campaign rules, the latest scenario deck has cards with asymmetric missions and we're just wrapping up 4 books who definitely aren't being purchased for tournament play.

People will see that and say it "doesn't count" and tell you "no one plays that stuff" and not even try to play the stuff they claim they want. This stuff is absolutely out there you just have to put time into it and show up. If anything drives catering to tournament play, its the simple fact that people vote with their feet and show up to play at those events.

Ok, I'll have to counter this:

Every codex has crusade rules which appears to be a discontinued game mode in 11th.

The latest deck is the chapter approved mission deck, which is sold as "An essential tool-kit for creating Matched Play missions on the fly" which matched play isnt directly competitive, but the line is so thin and blurred it might as well be. Yes there are asymmetrical cards, but most people likely never tried them due to the community led normative behaviour.

The last 4 campaign books are an extremely small print run. I dont have any of them at present, how many can I buy for my casual games in 2 months time? Probably none? Interestingly they're also not listed under rules and codex in the 40k section of the webstore, whilst dice are.

GW is absolutely shaping a narrative (lol) to direct people away from any of the narrative oriented products and it works. It's equally fruitless telling people "but the rules are there, try harder" when as you note people attend tournament events because it's got explicit framework and simple expectations. Never mind the fact my hobby doesn't want to be nagging people to play a 15 game series of crusade rules with a load of book keeping they don't care for.

You just replied to my comment about how people dismiss all of it as not counting by dismissing it as not counting. It absolutely counts, you just have to use it.

 LunarSol wrote:
It absolutely counts, you just have to use it.

While I am otherwise not looking to speak on Dudeface's behalf here, their counterpoint about "the material is a small print run and rather inaccessible" is a pretty decent response to "just use it".

I used to do a lot of tabletop RPGs before covid, and core to that being practical was the longevity and availability of the books we used.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It absolutely counts, you just have to use it.

While I am otherwise not looking to speak on Dudeface's behalf here, their counterpoint about "the material is a small print run and rather inaccessible" is a pretty decent response to "just use it".

I used to a lot of tabletop RPGs before covid, and core to that being practical was the longevity and availability of the books we used.

All of this stuff is easy enough to find online though. I'm not sure about the latest book content as its definitely not where my interests lie, but locally there's a ton of support around it all that mostly revolves around a couple people that make sure they get ahold of the books and distribute materials to everyone involved. Even then, a lot of them are designed to run a lot longer than the minimum speed and have a good amount of replay value available.

Again, the primary issue is people showing up. GW puts this stuff out and everyone ignores or directly dismisses it and then we're surprised when the print runs are small? People need to vote with boots on the ground if they want these things beyond the idea of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
I'll also be completely honest and say that I don't think Crusade is very well thought through.

For example, it has lots of shiny special faction rules in the codex books... but those rules are more decoration than substance. A GSC player and a Tau player fighting a Crusade campaign against each other, using their Crusade mechanics, will see both players conquer worlds or even star systems, but not the worlds you're actually fighting over. The opposing player does not interact with, or may not even be aware of the planets the Tau player may be trying to integrate using their Crusade mechanics. The GSC player may be trying to overthrow their home world, a world the Tau has no relation to or way to interact with, despite being the actual opponent. This doesn't feel all that tempting compared to, say, the more involved campaign mechanics laid out in the Horus Heresy black books.

Another big chunk of Crusade is focused on stacking various powerful upgrades on your units as you go, which again is shiny and flashy and all, but creates as many problems as it solves, especially since it results in so many potential places for things to break.

I'll be 100% honest here. I do not like Crusade, largely for the last point where the individual games start becoming increasingly less fun as things break. I don't particularly care about winning or losing, but I definitely had a mixture of bad rules and bad luck in one of the 10th Crusades that is probably among my most sour gaming experiences. Its not for me but we actually have a huge audience for it locally so I've definitely seen how it works for people.

I think the big challenge these kinds of things have is that to make the experience they imagine, they have to invest a lot more into making it happen. Like if you want to feel like you're fighting over a specific place, you have to put the effort to design tables that represent that place. You have to make terrain and objective elements that line up with the story and do all of the theater work that people fantasize about when the imagine the idea of a campaign. The rules themselves are a script, but its up to the troupe to make it a performance. It's shares a lot of the same potential as something like DnD and also many of the same pitfalls.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It absolutely counts, you just have to use it.

While I am otherwise not looking to speak on Dudeface's behalf here, their counterpoint about "the material is a small print run and rather inaccessible" is a pretty decent response to "just use it".

I used to a lot of tabletop RPGs before covid, and core to that being practical was the longevity and availability of the books we used.

All of this stuff is easy enough to find online though. I'm not sure about the latest book content as its definitely not where my interests lie, but locally there's a ton of support around it all that mostly revolves around a couple people that make sure they get ahold of the books and distribute materials to everyone involved. Even then, a lot of them are designed to run a lot longer than the minimum speed and have a good amount of replay value available.

Again, the primary issue is people showing up. GW puts this stuff out and everyone ignores or directly dismisses it and then we're surprised when the print runs are small? People need to vote with boots on the ground if they want these things beyond the idea of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
I'll also be completely honest and say that I don't think Crusade is very well thought through.

For example, it has lots of shiny special faction rules in the codex books... but those rules are more decoration than substance. A GSC player and a Tau player fighting a Crusade campaign against each other, using their Crusade mechanics, will see both players conquer worlds or even star systems, but not the worlds you're actually fighting over. The opposing player does not interact with, or may not even be aware of the planets the Tau player may be trying to integrate using their Crusade mechanics. The GSC player may be trying to overthrow their home world, a world the Tau has no relation to or way to interact with, despite being the actual opponent. This doesn't feel all that tempting compared to, say, the more involved campaign mechanics laid out in the Horus Heresy black books.

Another big chunk of Crusade is focused on stacking various powerful upgrades on your units as you go, which again is shiny and flashy and all, but creates as many problems as it solves, especially since it results in so many potential places for things to break.

I'll be 100% honest here. I do not like Crusade, largely for the last point where the individual games start becoming increasingly less fun as things break. I don't particularly care about winning or losing, but I definitely had a mixture of bad rules and bad luck in one of the 10th Crusades that is probably among my most sour gaming experiences. Its not for me but we actually have a huge audience for it locally so I've definitely seen how it works for people.

I think the big challenge these kinds of things have is that to make the experience they imagine, they have to invest a lot more into making it happen. Like if you want to feel like you're fighting over a specific place, you have to put the effort to design tables that represent that place. You have to make terrain and objective elements that line up with the story and do all of the theater work that people fantasize about when the imagine the idea of a campaign. The rules themselves are a script, but its up to the troupe to make it a performance. It's shares a lot of the same potential as something like DnD and also many of the same pitfalls.

I'm glad your local situation is narratively driven and supportive of those materials, but I think you're being overly dismissive based on why this is a problem.

GW market and push the matched play and tournament style games at all turns, likewise online communities are far easier to find for competitive play and general matched play discourse. There is no support for narrative play in the app. There are supply issues accessing narrative materials.

All of these are hurdles to people engaging with the format and simply telling me to try harder, doesn't equate to them wanting to use pirated materials, lopsided games, book keep extra info and so on. People, as you keep saying, vote with their feet. They're voting to not use the materials they don't feel are accessible or supported by sticking to matched play.

I've said my piece, happy to leave it at that and yes there are materials for thise who happen to fall into a group of a like minded temperament.

I feel you can't force people to roleplay if they don't want to.

Any campaign system also always has the problem of needing people to broadly stay at the same power level - and that's difficult if you have someone who plays 3 times a week, someone who plays every other week, and someone who plays once every 3 months if they are lucky. That was true in Mordheim 25~ years ago.

The moment someone starts playing to win (even if its just a bit more than the rest) these systems also tend to collapse.

Do I prefer Grot 4 over Grot 1. Its a tricky one.

Dudeface wrote:

I'm glad your local situation is narratively driven and supportive of those materials, but I think you're being overly dismissive based on why this is a problem.

GW market and push the matched play and tournament style games at all turns, likewise online communities are far easier to find for competitive play and general matched play discourse. There is no support for narrative play in the app. There are supply issues accessing narrative materials.

All of these are hurdles to people engaging with the format and simply telling me to try harder, doesn't equate to them wanting to use pirated materials, lopsided games, book keep extra info and so on. People, as you keep saying, vote with their feet. They're voting to not use the materials they don't feel are accessible or supported by sticking to matched play.

I've said my piece, happy to leave it at that and yes there are materials for thise who happen to fall into a group of a like minded temperament.

I'm not trying to be dismissive, I've just come to recognize that these things just don't happen because the company behind them makes them happen, they happen because players and communities will them into being.

Tournaments don't happen because GW markets and makes them happen. The entire tournament scene is built, promoted and fueled by dedicated players who sink incredible amounts of time into building the scene from essentially nothing. They put in the hobby work to make enough terrain to cover enough tables. They book space, they advertise, they sacrifice weekends and they make it happen. Everything you see from GW today is basically them seeing value in that effort and piggybacking off of it.

GW puts out product to support narrative but they can't will it into popularity. It's up to players to engage with the material and bring it to life. That's always been how all of this works. If you want to see more of it, you have to engage with what's out there. Dismissing it as something no one plays just guarantees that it remains something no one plays and that GW will see no reason to invest in further.

These grots look terrific!

Of course, I think all grots look terrific, so maybe I lack critical discernment in this particular area.

 Pariah Press wrote:
These grots look terrific!

Of course, I think all grots look terrific, so maybe I lack critical discernment in this particular area.

The last one is my favorite of the bunch. Probably rate the as 4 - 3 - 1 - 2. Not a big fan of the second guy.

The Grots look great, other than the fact they have tiny ears.
They should have great floppy pointed ears.

That means they do not look like the ones I already own, so I am not interested in adding them, or changing over to the new.

Similar problem with the Intercessor & Vanguard they previewed. Those do not bring anything interesting enough to the changes they do have.

Oh well. Means I don't feel I need to get the new edition box.
I was leaning that way anyhow.
The number of actual 10th ed games that I got is not a positive indicator for purchasing the latest & greatest edition.
The churn has ground me down and spit me out.
New blood can take my place on the millstone.

 Nevelon wrote:

 Pariah Press wrote:
These grots look terrific!

Of course, I think all grots look terrific, so maybe I lack critical discernment in this particular area.

The last one is my favorite of the bunch. Probably rate the as 4 - 3 - 1 - 2. Not a big fan of the second guy.

I like them, but they could have been so much more. Like the one with the new previewed Ork Boss.

Really liking the latest Grot. I think it’s his little Biker Helm.

 skrulnik wrote:
The Grots look great, other than the fact they have tiny ears.
They should have great floppy pointed ears.

That means they do not look like the ones I already own, so I am not interested in adding them, or changing over to the new.

Someone mentioned that they're probably trying to make them distinct from Goblins. I prefer bigger ears myself, but these still work for me.

I actually always prefer different. I don't have too many Grots so getting these and mixing them in my existing units is a good way to expand out. If I had a sea of them already though I would be content to stick with what I have.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
What I'm most worried about is that the starter troops units (Intercessors for the Marines, Boyz for the Orks) will, in the box, get bog standard gun loadouts, and then when those kits release separately, they'll include another sprue with the special weapons like they did with the Termagants. And of course, that means your starter units are chumped compared to the full box units since all options are free now. That one made me very salty with 10th and is a (small) part of the reason I ended up selling my Nids. Absolutely predatory on GW's part.

Really depends on how it's done of course, but I liked getting "cheap" extra Termagant bodies from other origins (Starter Set, Hachette Partworks collection...) and being able to use the extra weapons sprue from the more expensive kit with multiple bodies. This certainly beats the alternative of, for example, the Terminators, where the push-fit version is absolutely not compatible with the multi-part kit.

CorwinB wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
What I'm most worried about is that the starter troops units (Intercessors for the Marines, Boyz for the Orks) will, in the box, get bog standard gun loadouts, and then when those kits release separately, they'll include another sprue with the special weapons like they did with the Termagants. And of course, that means your starter units are chumped compared to the full box units since all options are free now. That one made me very salty with 10th and is a (small) part of the reason I ended up selling my Nids. Absolutely predatory on GW's part.

Really depends on how it's done of course, but I liked getting "cheap" extra Termagant bodies from other origins (Starter Set, Hachette Partworks collection...) and being able to use the extra weapons sprue from the more expensive kit with multiple bodies. This certainly beats the alternative of, for example, the Terminators, where the push-fit version is absolutely not compatible with the multi-part kit.

You can generally make up a couple guys out of the multi part with special weapons and use the push fit as the grunts.

Even the grots have tactical rocks.


Guess I'll just keep waiting for a Made To Order of the Gorkamorka grots...

CorwinB wrote:


Really depends on how it's done of course, but I liked getting "cheap" extra Termagant bodies from other origins (Starter Set, Hachette Partworks collection...) and being able to use the extra weapons sprue from the more expensive kit with multiple bodies. This certainly beats the alternative of, for example, the Terminators, where the push-fit version is absolutely not compatible with the multi-part kit.

I hear you on the "cheap" minis. When 8th edition started I had a friend that wanted to update his Deathguard. We bought three starter sets (20% off coupon), sold the third rulebook and a few assorted models, split the forces. That gave me a GREAT starting point for a new Ultramarine force when combined with a handful of extra stuff I had laying around, like an Imperial Space Marine, Storm Talon, and a Rapier team.

Mod edit.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I'll also be completely honest and say that I don't think Crusade is very well thought through.

For example, it has lots of shiny special faction rules in the codex books... but those rules are more decoration than substance. A GSC player and a Tau player fighting a Crusade campaign against each other, using their Crusade mechanics, will see both players conquer worlds or even star systems, but not the worlds you're actually fighting over. The opposing player does not interact with, or may not even be aware of the planets the Tau player may be trying to integrate using their Crusade mechanics. The GSC player may be trying to overthrow their home world, a world the Tau has no relation to or way to interact with, despite being the actual opponent. This doesn't feel all that tempting compared to, say, the more involved campaign mechanics laid out in the Horus Heresy black books.

Another big chunk of Crusade is focused on stacking various powerful upgrades on your units as you go, which again is shiny and flashy and all, but creates as many problems as it solves, especially since it results in so many potential places for things to break.

So, yes... By DEFAULT, it does go the way you say: I can capture planets as a GSC player and not tell you, my Tau opponent which planet I'm attacking, and you can do the same for me. This is GW's DEFAULT because it's the least invasive way for each player to forge their own narrative without imposing anything on their opponent. In fact, if you're willing to suppress your Battle Honours and scars in order to play matched with someone, it's possible to complete objective based agendas during a matched play game and continue earning RP and XP without your opponent even knowing that you've done it.

GW made that the default for ease of use with a broad player base. But just because that's the default, it doesn't mean that this is the only way to play it.

The best book for generating a system is the Tau book, because it has you generate ALL the planets in a system at the same time. When I did this, I randomly determined there would be 7 territories. I generated them one at a time so that I could go closest to the sun to farthest. This what I got in order: Mining World, Agriworld, Fleet Installation, Military Base, Political Center, Civilian World and Trader's hub. At this point, I know how close each is to the sun, how many Military Points it has and how many Diplomacy Points it has, and I know the bonus it provides to a Tau player who brings it into pursuit of The Greater Good.

But here's the thing: Mining Worlds can ALSO be found in the GSC book. So now my Mining World (Maryllion's Hammer) has: Diplomacy Power 3, Military Power 4, it provides the Harvest Resources and Starve the War Machine assimilation abilities and the Spoils of War supply line effect, all from the Tau book. BUT I also know that its 4 Institutions are Community, Industry, Resources x2 from the GSC book. Now, there is no "Mining World" in the Tyranid book... But I know this planet is closest to the sun and has only one Community institution... This, I reason, is because miners have to conduct their activity under solar shields or die, so I figure the best match from the Nid book is Rural World. So now I also know how much Resistance it has and how much Biomass it provides for each of the three stages of Tyrannid consumption.

Now all three factions CAN choose to race each other to see whether the Tau can assimilate it before Ascension Day, and if the Cult gets big enough to attract Nids before either faction succeeds, they can begin devouring it. Narratively, because the Nids come last, the Tau and GSC escalate as they fight each other- bringing additional resources to bear due to sunk cost as the war heats up. After fighting for so long, some of the Diplomacy or Military Points represent gains made by Tau, and some of the Institutions are under the control of the GSC. So IF the Nids arrive, there force is small- it hasn't had a chance to escalate, while both the GSC and TAU have. But when the Nids devour, some of what they devour represents Tau infrastructure and some represents GSC infrastructure... So GSC and Tau STOP escalation and begin to face attrition instead. But the Nids are Devouring, so THEY escalate.

Now think of this: what if I also generate D3+1 continents on my mining world. And then 3d3 Territories per continent. And now the initial 500 pt Tau army is deployed on one territory of one continent. The Institutions and Diplomacy/ Military points are randomly distributed among the continents (but NOT specific Territories for ease of use). Factions can't travel to a different continent unless they have Aircraft on their Order of Battle. For armies without Aircraft, they can purchase passage on civilian transport for RP.

Oh yeah... And did I mention that there are six other planets... Which can now be given the exact same treatment?

Then maybe I randomly distribute Webway gates in random territories on random continents of random planets to facilitate both Realspace Raids and Fate-Based interventions which cause all flavours of Eldar to interact in battles with the other factions... Interactions which are territory neutral, with Escalation happening in Commorragh when Drukhari return with Raid Spoils or Craftworlds when Aeldari Guide Fate.

And of course there are Guard Garrisons in certain territories, Convents in others.

Is this starting to sound like a level 1-20 D&D campaign that takes six guys five years to play at a game every two weeks at someone's house, in the garage, dining room or basement to you? Because that's what it sounds like to me.

NOTES:

1) The examples provided were based on 9th ed Crusade, not 10th... Because 9th was where we started.
2) I gave you detail on how GSC, Tau and Nids interact and kinda sped through other factions to keep the post short... But TRUST me, it and hard to weave it together. I find letting people fight "NPC" battles against Player Orders of Battle is great for opportunities to open up against players who are friends and want to play, but can't commit or don't want to do Crusade book keeping... Which helps mitigate cut throat, goal vs goal narrative interaction when players need to dial back.
3) GAMES are competitive. Campaign narratives are cooperative- in the same way a D&D player will often support the GM's world building efforts by providing background... Like a map of their home town, the history of their barbarian tribe or the Royal Lineage of their City State, players can find ways to collaborate, compete or give each other space depending upon the needs of the narrative.

Think of a star system from the Tau book NOT as a campaign with winners or losers, but a shared ecosystem in which games occur.

The tiny ears on these new Grots bring to mind ear clipping on dogs, have they decided to lean into pet cruelty further with Orks for 11th? I just thing they look really odd, the models look much better than the previous set, other than the ears. A nice mix of the old Gorkamorka era metals and 2nd Ed stylings.

The new Grots seem to lean more into an evil conniving look. The current kit is a mixed bag in my opinion, with some good-looking designs (the fur-trimmed helmet is an Ork classic to me) and some really dated ones. I also never understood why the Runtherd is that fat
Interestingly, the Grot in the new warboss kit has more in common with the current design. I think I do prefer that one to the standalone ones they're showing now.
I definitely like the new Boyz, Nob, Warboss and Weirdboy though, so I'm looking forward to the full reveal later today, especially the vehicles.

Biker style helmets suggest at least one is due to be punched by a Jokaero.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Biker style helmets suggest at least one is due to be punched by a Jokaero.

To quote Captain America, I understood that reference.

 ZergSmasher wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Biker style helmets suggest at least one is due to be punched by a Jokaero.

To quote Captain America, I understood that reference.

Excellent!



[squeakyvoicd]I knows wot your finkin’ git. Did I’s shoot lots, or lots and lots?[/squeakyvoice]

LOL, yes he is indeed a rough customer!

With their lobes being that small they might be female grots...

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
With their lobes being that small they might be female grots...

They are mushrooms.
But the ear size reduced is a weird choice for sure.
Don’t like it. The rest of the sculpt is pretty great.

Do we reckon those skulls and rocks will be modelled onto the bases? They don't seem to be in line for slottas on the models themselves.

Forget the ears, you guys are missing the important part; the anti-cat helmets are back.

 PenitentJake wrote:
So, yes... By DEFAULT, it does go the way you say: I can capture planets as a GSC player and not tell you, my Tau opponent which planet I'm attacking, and you can do the same for me. This is GW's DEFAULT because it's the least invasive way for each player to forge their own narrative without imposing anything on their opponent.

Well, it's their default because it's a low-effort way to write it, and GW's way to drip-feed books throughout the edition means it's hard to link rules to books that haven't released yet.

All that stuff you talked about sounds very cool, but it's also essentially a whole load of homebrew. It's cool, so I will praise your work if I saw this campaign in action. What I would not do is praise GW, because this is you doing the work, not them. I will judge Crusade on the material provided. Homebrew absolutely is narrative play's best friend and I will in no way speak ill of it, the point is more that I could homebrew in any game out there, so there's not much point factoring it into an assessment.

No_Marines_Here wrote:
Do we reckon those skulls and rocks will be modelled onto the bases? They don't seem to be in line for slottas on the models themselves.

Recently in starter boxes GW do bases with holes, rather than slottas, and skulls and rocks like that are generally for plugging the holes in cases where the base has 2 holes but the model only has one peg i.e. on one foot. My money's on that

 Mr_Rose wrote:
Forget the ears, you guys are missing the important part; the anti-cat helmets are back.

Clearly stated by someone who does not own a cat . Mine will still fling them off the table sideways. Cats are the proof that the earth is not flat, if it was we'd all have been knocked off or tripped up and stumbled off the edge already

Billicus wrote:

No_Marines_Here wrote:
Do we reckon those skulls and rocks will be modelled onto the bases? They don't seem to be in line for slottas on the models themselves.

Recently in starter boxes GW do bases with holes, rather than slottas, and skulls and rocks like that are generally for plugging the holes in cases where the base has 2 holes but the model only has one peg i.e. on one foot. My money's on that

Models with big feet/contact points can do without base details to make more room for the peg, but smaller models benefit from a rock/skull/etc for more contact. So even small one peg models need rocks.

I think multi-hole bases start at 40mm, so probably not grots. But you are correct that one peg models on larger bases get little extras to fill the gap.

You're totally right, on little bases there tends to only be the one hole.

I bet smaller ears are a tradeoff to avoid undercuts and allow better alignment on sprues. I'm betting grots will be one of those etb sprues that is sold separately later like negron warriors and termagants

I cant make heads or tails about the stream time again... How many hours until showtime? All these letter salads..

 MajorWesJanson wrote:
I'm betting grots will be one of those etb sprues that is sold separately later like negron warriors and termagants

I'm expecting the same for the boyz, probably just ten models with two head options each. There's no need for multiple options now that choppas and shootas are the same unit.
But if a nob is included, that would make it impossible to create a twenty man unit. So the boss nob might just be a separate character that can join boyz mobs.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tauist wrote:
I cant make heads or tails about the stream time again... How many hours until showtime? All these letter salads..

Two hours from now if I remember right.

Yup. 19:00 UK time, and as I type it’s 17:04

cheers doc

Since the current Codexes are cafrrying on into the next edition, it follows that Crusade must get at least a mention in the new rulebook, else there'll be pages that mean nothing. Same with combat patrol; since each Codex has one listed, the rules for it must be in the main book.

Of course, the 11th edition Codexes may do away with Crusade when they get to being done, but they wouldn't fully can it until at least 12th if they did that.

Ok, tonight... the odds are 20:1 that there are no technical issues.

 Shakalooloo wrote:
Since the current Codexes are cafrrying on into the next edition, it follows that Crusade must get at least a mention in the new rulebook, else there'll be pages that mean nothing. Same with combat patrol; since each Codex has one listed, the rules for it must be in the main book.

Of course, the 11th edition Codexes may do away with Crusade when they get to being done, but they wouldn't fully can it until at least 12th if they did that.

You do realize they could just put both Crusade & Combat Patrol on the Community Downloads page (Crusade is already there), right?

Alright people I wanna nice, clean dispersal this time!

Somebody wake up 'Doc...

Live now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfTSpDSQe0s

That guy in the background on the stream is possibly the shittiest drawing of an Ork GW have ever published.

 Nazrak wrote:
That guy in the background on the stream is possibly the shittiest drawing of an Ork GW have ever published.

You are going to get someone who personally knows the artist and is convinced they are really good and you can't possibly say that.
But yes.

Why do they keep saying "frame"? It's a sprue lads.

No Snakebite transfers? BOO!

Show the damned models!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Show the damned models!

Yeah they're really dragging this out, even by their usual standards. I'm off to the pub and I'll look at it all later.

That’s betterer!

Dakkarig? Nah mate. I’m still gonna call it a Waaagh Walker.

Really like the Wartrakk. Warboss is neat.

Wartrak!

and since there are Crimson Fists transfers, this is now the 'Battle at the Farm' launch box :-)

Happy the Big Boss returns. Well. I say returns. Pretty sure something similar existed in 2nd Ed?

Regardless, a mid-level fighty lad is welcome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also Grot ears look better in the not-quite 360.

It all comes down to control of that farm. Only a year to go...

Grot Orderly wins the preview thus far. And may win it outright.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nice speaking over each other there lads.

Super happy with these Orks for sure. I've got a lot of rebasing ahead though...

That's not an original wartrakk!

That is not an original Wartrakk!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh snap!

The Dakkarig...that's nice.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That is not an original Wartrakk!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh snap!

Getting your ork vehicles mixed up?

Blast for Melee does not scream joy...

Ork models better than expected.
Wartrakk especially is surprisingly good.

But I really don't like the Waaagh Walker. Feels a bit redundant and stupid. Should have been a new Deff Dread.

MarkNorfolk wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That is not an original Wartrakk!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh snap!

Getting your ork vehicles mixed up?

Nah. A verbatim copy of the post immediately before.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That is not an original Wartrakk!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh snap!

I was getting similarly mad about this.

They did correct themselves with what I consider a very polite “shut up, nerds!”


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Intercessors are looking nice.

http://www.solegends.com/citcat1991a/cat1991ap087orkwartrak-00.htm

I dunno. Bike at the front, tracks at the back, gun on top. Pretty much a wartrakk.

I’m enjoying the more dynamic look of the Marine stuff.

Not sure I’m gonna get the box though. Will probably scab about trying to get the lore book instead. Love me lore, me.

The marine stuff is cool. Not super necessary but cool. I could probably skip it if I wasn't for sure getting the Ork stuff.

Yeah. It's nice an' all, but I think I have the will power to resist the figures this time around. I would like the paper components too, though.

Really liking the banners in the Orky half. Just enough sculpted detail, and very traditional.

Everything looks cool. Not super novel, but just basic stuff done well. I'm definitely getting the box.

Yeah this is super skippable. The captain and librarian are alright and the VanVets look like okay kitbashing material, but I'll pass on this.

Surprised the Intercessor squad's loadout is unchanged. I would have thought they'd mess with it just to encourage people to replace their older unit.

So no more Crusade confirmed :-(

 Ashiraya wrote:
Yeah this is super skippable. The captain and librarian are alright and the VanVets look like okay kitbashing material, but I'll pass on this.

Surprised the Intercessor squad's loadout is unchanged. I would have thought they'd mess with it just to encourage people to replace their older unit.

To be honest, the poses and armour details are interesting enough to encourage sales, without causing grief by (so far! We don’t currently know if there’s an updated regular kit coming) by adding in all new options.

I loved every single Ork unit in this box. I also absolutely hated every Marine unit in this box.

I'm now torn.. either I skip the box, like I was going to, or buy it and sell the Astartes off. The contents of this box's Ork half would make for a nice 2nd edition 40K army foundation, just add more grots and a Killa Kan..

oh well, plenty of time to think about it

Well that was incredibly whelming.

I liked that bit at the end where they tried to not say Crusade was dead but heavily implied it was a 10th edition game mode.

Quite happy with how the Ork side looks, the heads on the new Boyz are quite nice (a big step up from the Beast Snagga Boyz).

Seems like some of the upper bodies and legs are exchangeable which is interesting. Don't expect you'll notice the differences much on the table though, would've been nicer to get some more variant arms.

If Invaders really go away you could definitely get away with putting them on a base as a Land Speeder. Might need to give them a tactical rock for a Dukes pose though.

The Orks and Grotz bring back a lot of GorkaMorka memories...which is pretty awesome!

Cool. Looks as close to the 2nd ed box as one could expect.

Landspeeder looks cool, and worthy replacement of the old and to replace the ATV.

Orky Walker is a fun concept, but doesn't bring much new that a Dread or Kan Mob brought.

Marines are fairly pedestrian to me.
IDK what's up with the Captain's hair, so helmet it is.
Chappy is good enough. Can detail him up in appropriate chapter bling.
Ancient is cool, but doesn't improve on the solo blister or the Company Heroes versions.
Librarian seems to be literally a repose of the original Primaris dude.
Intercessors should have had one beaky. disappointed. Also, they should have something besides the grenade launcher...
Vanguard are what I expected. Power Sword & pistol. Relic Blade is nice. Hopefully there is a multi-part kit with weapon options down the road.
I like the Eradicator armor, so additional loadout is nice. But they could have had 2 like the Inceptors or a chaingun?

I notice there's only 10 grots & they share sprue with the boyz.
That also means there is only 5 real poses/upper body swaps, because the heads seem one piece with the arms.
Ork boyz look okay.
Nobs and bosses seem way over-sized to me.
IDK, just something about the orks feels off.

Very cool to see the new Wartrakk. Wish they'd shown some weapon options and a size comparison to current bikers.

 goffnob deffsmakka wrote:
Quite happy with how the Ork side looks, the heads on the new Boyz are quite nice (a big step up from the Beast Snagga Boyz).

Spoiler:

Seems like some of the upper bodies and legs are exchangeable which is interesting. Don't expect you'll notice the differences much on the table though, would've been nicer to get some more variant arms.

Interesting that the legs appear to be swappable. Usually that's where I start for these things but its the upper torso that's mostly the same. Really impressive with how different the Boss Nob looks in its two poses. Definitely less redundant than the current kit too.

The Painboy and Big Boss are also great, loving the old-school face on the Big Boss.
Warboss and Boss Nob sadly have the same tiny arms as the warboss kit.

The marine half is a bit meh, but I'm also part of the (rare) breed of player who doesn't own a single Space Marine.

I do like the look of the campaign/lore book, I might have missed it but was there any mention of scenarios in the book?

I hope, with Mission Decks even more essential to gameplay, there is a firm commitment by GW to keep them in good supply.

Given this is 2026/2027 Deck? We can only hope.

Imagine missing out and being stuffed for a year.

 LunarSol wrote:
Interesting that the legs appear to be swappable. Usually that's where I start for these things but its the upper torso that's mostly the same. Really impressive with how different the Boss Nob looks in its two poses. Definitely less redundant than the current kit too.

I originally thought it was the tactical rock which was exchangeable before I noticed the leg differences
Also impressed by the variation in the two Nobz, they made me think it was a sprue of 20 sculpts at first.


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 skrulnik wrote:
I notice there's only 10 grots & they share sprue with the boyz.
That also means there is only 5 real poses/upper body swaps, because the heads seem one piece with the arms.

I hadn't caught that, so during Grot week they really did show the only five fully unique Grots in the box
That's a bit dissapointing, and I'm not sure if a separate new Grot kit is in the cards.

The Captain's Mk.X helmet is a nice design, really giving the classic Mk.VII a run for its money

I am actually quite impressed by the ork half!
Boyz were my biggest concern, as the previous kit was a massive step back compared to the old gitz. Weirdboy I like the least.
Will probably try to find a person to split the box with.

One thing that I picked was that Boyz Nob leaders have option for kombi-shoota or Rokkit-Shoota with different profiles as this was requested a lot. And I hope these "requests" will follow on marines and we get combi-plasma/melta/flamer back.

And I really, really hope that this happens because combined combi-weapon profile is one the stupidest things, ever.

A friend of mine plays Orks, I play Marines so I can see myself splitting this box easy enough. Especially since they are Blood Angels.

Those are nice Boyz

My impression is the marine half feels less exciting than the Marines that came with the Tyranid set. They are very good models but they feel very - plain - at the same time. The only one that feels like its got "launch set flare" is the chaplin.

That said they are a very solid force for BA so I'm sure BA fans will be very happy to get a very solid core!



Ork half honestly looks awesome and far more exciting. And I say that as a non-ork fan (in models).


Interesting to see that GW has split the BRB into two separate books; this seems to be a pathway they are on, though I was surprised to hear that they won't do a separate print run of the lore part.
Thankfully I know stock will be easy to get as there will be loads of split kits and people wanting to offload the books; but still that's the only surprise for me

I imagine that the rulebook that comes out later will be a hardback lore+rules. It would be great if the paperback little book was to go on regular sale.

On crusade:

The second deck might help add some back?
This exciting new deck lets you and your fellow players link your games of Warhammer 40,000 together into a grand campaign for the future of Armageddon, or any other war zone. Taking place over three campaign phases, these dynamic cards set out briefings for individual Alliances, assign Agendas to complete over the course of multiple games, and reward standout units with Upgrades that persist throughout the campaign.
Each of the three Alliances has nine unique Agendas they can try to score during their games, and doing so earns them a special card that affects the end of the campaign. They’ll also vie for control of critical locations on the planet, each of which gives the controlling Alliance special rules that will affect future games and adds thematic rules to the battlefield, such as dangerous rockfalls and crumbling ruins that damage units sheltering inside.
This is the easiest way ever to set up a Warhammer 40,000 campaign, removing the bookkeeping, and you can run an entire campaign in a weekend.


Sounds like it hits some of the points of crusade? We’ll find out when we get more info. Sliver of hope.

 Nevelon wrote:
On crusade:

The second deck might help add some back?
This exciting new deck lets you and your fellow players link your games of Warhammer 40,000 together into a grand campaign for the future of Armageddon, or any other war zone. Taking place over three campaign phases, these dynamic cards set out briefings for individual Alliances, assign Agendas to complete over the course of multiple games, and reward standout units with Upgrades that persist throughout the campaign.
Each of the three Alliances has nine unique Agendas they can try to score during their games, and doing so earns them a special card that affects the end of the campaign. They’ll also vie for control of critical locations on the planet, each of which gives the controlling Alliance special rules that will affect future games and adds thematic rules to the battlefield, such as dangerous rockfalls and crumbling ruins that damage units sheltering inside.
This is the easiest way ever to set up a Warhammer 40,000 campaign, removing the bookkeeping, and you can run an entire campaign in a weekend.


Sounds like it hits some of the points of crusade? We’ll find out when we get more info. Sliver of hope.

Seems like a simplified version - which is perfectly appropriate for a starter box.

The rules are close enough anyway, that most of the existing 10th stuff will port over just fine with minimal clean-up. A new product pipeline and active support does help with recruitment though.

Well Orks are absolutely show stealers, these marines are best ones so far since 8. ed.

Simply put, these marines look much more individual then before and not some Mk. X clone trooper.

i'd be interested to see where the rule book(s) get printed

splitting it in half might be being done to let them use somewhere in the UK/Europe rather than China

Got to say this is a great box all round. The Orks are the clear winners they are just fantastic models.

Orks are absolutely amazing.

Primaris are …okay?

I guess it makes sense that the 5th Company have a relic banner for the Armageddon campaign, when this is the first time they've fought there..?

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
i'd be interested to see where the rule book(s) get printed

splitting it in half might be being done to let them use somewhere in the UK/Europe rather than China

Huh. That got me thinking.

There are 2 books in this box. One is a very Armageddon specific campaign book. The other is a small, slimline rulebook. Do we expect to get the full lore dump for the universe? The history, briefs on all the factions, gallery of minis, etc? The stuff that normally fills half of the massive tomes that rulebooks have been in the past?

That’s been a core include on the big rule book for a very long time...

 goffnob deffsmakka wrote:

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 skrulnik wrote:
I notice there's only 10 grots & they share sprue with the boyz.
That also means there is only 5 real poses/upper body swaps, because the heads seem one piece with the arms.

I hadn't caught that, so during Grot week they really did show the only five fully unique Grots in the box
That's a bit dissapointing, and I'm not sure if a separate new Grot kit is in the cards.

Wild this is also apparently using swappable legs... and at least one arm?

Something I don't think anyone here has pointed out: the snippet of the Captain's datasheet we can see on the social media posts refers to them presumably being able to lead a "Tactical Sq", with the rest of "Squad" being cut off by the Chaplain datasheet.

So, Tactical Squad not dead?

 Nevelon wrote:


There are 2 books in this box. One is a very Armageddon specific campaign book. The other is a small, slimline rulebook. Do we expect to get the full lore dump for the universe? The history, briefs on all the factions, gallery of minis, etc? The stuff that normally fills half of the massive tomes that rulebooks have been in the past?

That’s been a core include on the big rule book for a very long time...

In 5th edition, Assault on Black Reach starter box had a small rule book that did not have the lore. However, the standard rulebook (sold separately) had all of the lore and faction summaries and pretty pictures. I expect the same for 11th edition. I really miss those smaller 5th edition books.

This box is not going to be cheap.

I really enjoyed the chilled overview of the minis, GW did a good event here.

The minis overall have some really good designs, they took the starters push fits into another level and even with some head options etc.
Not going to lie that I was expecting to be underwhelmed but quite the contrary, this box looks a very solid hobby boost for all kinds of hobbyists.
The Diorama battle duels is such a nice touch and the individual fixed poses have such great dynamic.

I cannot personally justify this box because at this particular point in my journey I'm not caring for the paper content and neither the Orks basically 2/3 of the box is not for me.

Positive vibes all around. This is a good box.

You know what, these are the first new Orks I genuinely like since the early 90ies Kev Adams stuff

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Something I don't think anyone here has pointed out: the snippet of the Captain's datasheet we can see on the social media posts refers to them presumably being able to lead a "Tactical Sq", with the rest of "Squad" being cut off by the Chaplain datasheet.

So, Tactical Squad not dead?

Could just be edition launch shuffles, like how 10th edition brought the Primaris Company Champion out of Legends for a few months, before booting him right back into it when the Company Heroes dropped.

I really, really hope that the new Land Speeder has the option to replace the multimelta with a Heavy bolter. I'm not too mad if I have to add missiles to my old Land Speeders, but yanking off the Heavy Bolter and putting on a Multimelta would be a pain in the butt.

I really like the speeder. It combines the best qualities of the old plastic one and the really old metal one (which I love). I think that is a home run.

Also great to see wartrek back. I remember playing my buddy who had a bunch of the old metal ones. Hopefully for you ork players they will bring back the flamer trek as well.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I really, really hope that the new Land Speeder has the option to replace the multimelta with a Heavy bolter. I'm not too mad if I have to add missiles to my old Land Speeders, but yanking off the Heavy Bolter and putting on a Multimelta would be a pain in the butt.

The TML/HB speeder was one of my go-to favorites from the old days. Although a chunk of 2nd ed MM/HF would also hit the table from time to time. So glad to see the old style speeder back in the game.

The fact that the one in this box can swap the chin gun for a HF and has something to help it go on a non-unique scenic base does not give me a lot of hope we are going to get more options. I suspect we will just see this sprue boxed and sold separately.

Although I’d love to be wrong.

If Firstborn are moving to Legends, Intercessors and assault intercession could go back to just tactical and assault squads

The trak and orkmech were definitely the highlight of the box.
The marines have been no more exciting than any other marines at any point in time. There must be marines, so we've got more marines.
Except for the land speeder. Somehow it looks more toylike than the nearly 30 years old 3rd edition one in my eyes.

It’s the missiles for me.

Might just be Oldfartitis, but they look tacked on, like a kids enthusiastic but inexperienced conversion.

And speaking of Oldfartitis? Is it just me not being that used to modern Orks, or do these lads, especially the big guys look bulkier and more girthy in the chest?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Something I don't think anyone here has pointed out: the snippet of the Captain's datasheet we can see on the social media posts refers to them presumably being able to lead a "Tactical Sq", with the rest of "Squad" being cut off by the Chaplain datasheet.

So, Tactical Squad not dead?

Possibly. It could also just be a launch box thing. A lot of the rules in the 10th edition box were later overwritten by the Codex release.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


And speaking of Oldfartitis? Is it just me not being that used to modern Orks, or do these lads, especially the big guys look bulkier and more girthy in the chest?

They do. Just like the Warboss they showed off a while ago, their chest is much bigger relative to their arms in particular than they used to be.

Loving the Ork stuff

Space Marines - less than Meh

Call me old but all the nu-marines / Primaris stuff seems so busy yet so devoid of character and flavor. Its like they have tried to make beige more interesting by adding more beige

I have a friend who wants to get into 40k, I figured the release of a new edition was a good starting point so would jump in for the first time since 7th.

But this box is just a bit underwhelming.

The orks have odd proportions and the walker is awful. And why do they need two boss models?

The marines are just a bit plain.
The characters all have too much tactical rock.
The new speeder is a half way house between the classic and the terrible primaris ones.
The heavy bolter dudes have a terrible sergeant.

Nobody is going to be picking up multiple copies of this to build a force, like the good old days.

I'll wait and see what the price is, but this doesn't feel as good an offering as leviathan was and I passed on that.

 LunarSol wrote:

 goffnob deffsmakka wrote:

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 skrulnik wrote:
I notice there's only 10 grots & they share sprue with the boyz.
That also means there is only 5 real poses/upper body swaps, because the heads seem one piece with the arms.

I hadn't caught that, so during Grot week they really did show the only five fully unique Grots in the box
That's a bit dissapointing, and I'm not sure if a separate new Grot kit is in the cards.

Wild this is also apparently using swappable legs... and at least one arm?

Seems like six upper bodies and five sets of legs.

In regards to the Wartrakk, I love that it's back and reminiscent of the Gorkamorka one (and not too different in scale even). But man, I would kill to have a model of the one from Dawn of War 1.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

And speaking of Oldfartitis? Is it just me not being that used to modern Orks, or do these lads, especially the big guys look bulkier and more girthy in the chest?

This is effectively the monopose tradeoff. Complex, thick muscles are hard to pull of in HIPS in general, but it can definitely be done in monopose with clamshelf designs.


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 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Something I don't think anyone here has pointed out: the snippet of the Captain's datasheet we can see on the social media posts refers to them presumably being able to lead a "Tactical Sq", with the rest of "Squad" being cut off by the Chaplain datasheet.

So, Tactical Squad not dead?

I haven't seen this post. Any link to the picture? The Intercessor card is definitely out there, but I haven't seen anything that shows what the Captain can lead.

EDIT: NVM. Found it. Weird.

60 miniatures all in all? That's 20% more than Saturnine so we might be looking at a £250 price tag. Or are we holding out hope for a push-fit discount?

I really can't wrap my head around the assembly of the boyz and grots. Some look almost identical except the feet?

 Nazrak wrote:
Why do they keep saying "frame"? It's a sprue lads.

In manufacturing, frame is the proper name. The sprue is just the channel for the plastic to enter the mould.

Somewhere along the line, modellers misapplied the word and it stuck.

 Ohman wrote:
I really can't wrap my head around the assembly of the boyz and grots. Some look almost identical except the feet?

You get effectively 2x of the sprue containing 1 Nob, 9 Boyz and 5 Gretchin. They look like the back and legs are mostly one piece with the front attaching on. Some of those fronts are interchangeable and some include arms as part of the bit. Heads seem to be separate. The result is 30 models made up of 15 models duplicated, but with enough swappable details that they pass as fairly unique looking until you start looking for the parts that repeat.

Not bad variety for push fit.

Swappable legs has been a thing for GW since at least the beastmen from Blackstone Fortress. An easy way to double the 'poses' available on limited sprue space.

This was all very.. hmm...

I think whats bothering me, is that I already have all this, in consistent armour, so all this stuff just doesn't 'fit' with how I see Marines now. Take the Eradicators - I was really hyped for them but.. theres that guy, in the MK7... and he just... stands out like a sore thumb.

The Ancient bugs me as well - why not stick him in Gravis so he's something different? That pairs with the Eradicators then, and it can be your 'we're only selling this in the box' model like the soon to be legends Biologis...

All in all... 2nd edition was my edition, and if this was meant to hype me through nostalgia, it didn't, and it just feels like lacking ideas. Don't get me wrong, I'm not someone who things Marines need massive of new things but... they need to realise that its okay to sell me the old rope. Just sell me some push fit intercessors in normal armour.

On top of that, it looks like the Warboss and the Captain share a tool, so I guess thats the start to the next Hachette partworks set.

The Orks... I really want to like them. The bigboss is really nice, as is the bannernob, but the boys and Gretchin are repetitive.


Oh and the bit that really bugs me, for some reason? The rulebook being a flimsy paperback. It feels like there printing it knowing it'll be replaced within a year, or maybe they didnt have enough card left...

So... Marine side looks mostly nice, aside from the overuse of tactical rocks. Gravis armour remains pointless, and they've somehow taken the previous landspeeder design and made it even uglier.


I'm really not sure what to make of the Orks. Some of the individual models look great... Some have weird faces, odd proportions and/or awkward poses. They'll probably look fine on the table, but the pics just don't sell them, for me.

I hate the tiny ears on the grots. And the Dakkarig is a fantastic example of adding something just for the sake of something new. A deffdredd with a big gun would have been a better (and less ugly) choice.

Overall, this is really underwhelming compared to the previous starter set.

I wonder what's happening with Runtherds?

 insaniak wrote:
And the Dakkarig is a fantastic example of adding something just for the sake of something new. A deffdredd with a big gun would have been a better (and less ugly) choice.

Or moving the FW Mega-dread to plastic.

I'll mirror the other thoughts of being very whelmed. I don't like modern GW rules, so I really only care about the models.

The Marine squad is fine, but any call of it including old armor marks is a laugh at best. You want primaris-sized marines in old armor, you need the Red Corsairs box. The captain and librarian are good sculpts, solid glow-ups. I'll probably grab some at some point. Not another Ancient, even though it's probably the best one yet. Eradicators, yuck. I hate the little blast shields like the Inceptor squad. The speeder looks very front heavy. Better than the primaris one, but a step down from the firstborn one.

Orks are a big old wet fart in my opinion, with two exceptions: the Bigboss and Wartrakk. Boys and other bosses suffer from big rectangualr slabby bodies and tiny stumpy legs. Absolutely misproportioned, even for a fictional alien race. Someone get Brian Nelson back on the phone. The Dakkarig is funny looking in an orky way, so they get credit for that at least. I am glad they're exploring various sizes of Ork boss-level characters. Grots, ears. Yes, that argument again.

Hard pass.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Ohman wrote:
I really can't wrap my head around the assembly of the boyz and grots. Some look almost identical except the feet?

You get effectively 2x of the sprue containing 1 Nob, 9 Boyz and 5 Gretchin. They look like the back and legs are mostly one piece with the front attaching on. Some of those fronts are interchangeable and some include arms as part of the bit. Heads seem to be separate. The result is 30 models made up of 15 models duplicated, but with enough swappable details that they pass as fairly unique looking until you start looking for the parts that repeat.

Most of the leg (not that Orks have much leg to begin with) seems to be on the front, as do all of the arms/weapons. The dorsal halves have some details that peek out into the front silhouette, such as Squigs and ammo pouches. As you say, only some swaps will work -- for example, the cosmetic equipment piece on the back seems to include the back half of the shoulder plate, meaning that some of those back cosmetic pieces will only pair with the front pieces that also have half of a shoulder plate.

The Blackstone Fortress Beastmen are indeed a good comparison, as are the original Deathwatch Overkill Cultists iirc. Something like this is how I imagine it broken up.
[spoiler]

I’m digging the girthier Boyz and other Orks. It helps reinforce their inhuman, being possessed of little if any body fat,moustache raw, rippling muscle. And lots of it.

I quite liked pretty much all of it - the Ork half was definitely the stronger part though.

Seems a little odd that every squad was a bit under-equipped, almost as though there are stand alone multi part kits coming out just around the corner with extra wargear (1 grenade launcher and a chainsword when it could have been 2 plus a power weapon in the intercessors, just 1 plasma pistol in the vanvets, no big shootas or klaws for the boyz).

New Captain would look really good if you can find a spare hammer and jump pack.

I bet every hefty axe/cleaver will be getting the new cleave rule in 11th just like every spear gets lance.

Combi weapons getting a bit of distinction is music to my ears, hopefully it is applied to all factions as their codex is updated.

The new leader character/support character distinction is going to be great for factions like Orks who have a fair number of minor characters. Wouldn't be surprised to see new combos like 10 Snagga Boyz + Beastboss + Painboss in a Trukk popping up which would be a nice bit of extra variety.

I'm wondering if the Eradicators are going to have 1 datasheet or 2 when the new Marine codex comes out. Would be pretty cool to be able to mix and match their guns a bit.

I just wanted to add - price is going to be a deciding factor for me on this.

It doesn't feel as premium as leviathan...£160 is going to be my limit..Anything higher and I'll pass

Comparing these two images Armageddon feels like it has less/smaller models inside than Leviathan:




Obviously its not going to be cheaper but it might actually not be that much more expensive due to that (but it likely will be)

Just a thought here: Valrak said a while back that Samael was going to get an updated model. I assumed it was going to be him on the jetbike. However, with the Landspeeder coming back, could it be Samael in Landspeeder?

After seeing the landspeeder, and the marines having not Mark X armor, I have a feeling 12th will somehow combine regular and Assault Intercessors into Tactical Intercessors.

Similar to Tacticals in HH, and more expensive, but look in the bright side: they're mono pose, so you don't have to worry about making them different... oh, and you always loose every Warhammer brand game unless you call them as Tactical Marines every time(we're also packaging them as such).

Seeing the contents all together, it looks really skewed in the Marines' favour... Contrast the 2nd ed starter with two squads of tactical marines against a vast sea of boys and grots...

At the very least, there are just too many Marine characters in this box.

 LunarSol wrote:
Super happy with these Orks for sure. I've got a lot of rebasing ahead though...

What base sizes have changed?

The boltguns look redesigned slightly to look more like the old school bolter. They've reduced that revolver looking part on the top that they introduced with the Primaries style

 Ohman wrote:
60 miniatures all in all? That's 20% more than Saturnine so we might be looking at a £250 price tag. Or are we holding out hope for a push-fit discount?

I did a quick count of how much plastic is in the box to compare against Leviathan and Saturnine.
All sprues have those center fill rods where the plastic is pushed in with a small sprue having one of those and bigger sprues just have 2 or 4 of them. So you can count any sprue as a multiple of a small sprue with one fill rod. (Exception are the even smaller character sprues but none of those are in any of the three compared boxsets.

Armageddon has a total of 16 small sprues worth of plastic for the Space Marines and 19 small sprues worth of plastic for the Orks for a total of 35 small sprues of plastic.
Leviathan, which was 200€, has a total of 16 small sprues worth of plastic for the Space Marines and 18 small sprues worth of plastic for the Tyranids for a total of 34 small sprues of plastic so nearly the same.
Saturnine which is 252€ has 54 small sprues worth of plastic split between 25 for the Salamanders and 29 for the Iron Warriors so quite a bit more. But Saturnine was also full kits instead of push fit so less models per sprue, this number includes the upgrade sprues for the tactical marines and HH on average gives more plastic than 40k.

In the end I expect around 215€ to 225€ for Armageddon.

Are the marines also visually more squat? Are they reverting to classic splayed leg, squatting marine poses rather the more upright, tall and stretched of earlier iterations. May just be image compression but those blood angels in the vs pic with the orks all look dense and squat.

Definitely not a fan of the new ork proportions. The older more hunched look is much better IMO.

The marines are fine, I'll probably buy them from someone splitting the box. The heavy bolter gravis marines will definitely have a place in my gravis heavy army.

I find I don't mind those new boyz. Better than the Beastsnaggas. Too big, of course, but not bad as sculpts. Characters are all pretty fun and so are the grots. I don't like the Ork Mech thing, doesn't "fit" with my idea of Orky Tech, but the Wartrakk is great.

Marines are fine I suppose. I don't see that they're massively different to any other marines released since 8th. I don't think much of the characters and everyone is way too big, but they're nice enough.

I won't buy the set though. It'll be too expensive for me to put up with the downsides and I don't really fancy owning any primaris at all.

One thing I've noticed about this box is that in the Marine half, there's NO PRIMARIS LIEUTENANT! For the last three editions, we've gotten at least one in the launch box (we got two in Dark Imperium). What is this world coming to? How will we cope without getting another Primaris Lieutenant?

Valrak's source were exact then, months ahead of time.

I still bemoan the loss of whimsy in orks, seen today most obviously in the gretchin. Sculpts are mostly very good tho, and none look like AI generated visual mess like Wazdakka does. Only quibble is that some of them seem to have no neck, their cheeks juts kinda continue into the shoulders (seen best on the Mek pilot)

Big Mek is sitting down on the Waaagh Walker.

I really don’t know if I prefer that to him being stood up. It does give it a somewhat more industrial look. But is sitting down for a battle Orky?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Big Mek is sitting down on the Waaagh Walker.

I really don’t know if I prefer that to him being stood up. It does give it a somewhat more industrial look. But is sitting down for a battle Orky?

Bikers do it all the time. And deff-koptas.

That’s because they go fasta.

But for a walky platform I’m just really torn. Then again, Meks are a little odd.

 LunarSol wrote:
You get effectively 2x of the sprue containing 1 Nob, 9 Boyz and 5 Gretchin. They look like the back and legs are mostly one piece with the front attaching on. Some of those fronts are interchangeable and some include arms as part of the bit. Heads seem to be separate. The result is 30 models made up of 15 models duplicated, but with enough swappable details that they pass as fairly unique looking until you start looking for the parts that repeat.

Alright I see, I wasn't thinking they'd be split that way.

Pilot Pirx wrote:
Most of the leg (not that Orks have much leg to begin with) seems to be on the front, as do all of the arms/weapons. The dorsal halves have some details that peek out into the front silhouette, such as Squigs and ammo pouches. As you say, only some swaps will work -- for example, the cosmetic equipment piece on the back seems to include the back half of the shoulder plate, meaning that some of those back cosmetic pieces will only pair with the front pieces that also have half of a shoulder plate.

The Blackstone Fortress Beastmen are indeed a good comparison, as are the original Deathwatch Overkill Cultists iirc. Something like this is how I imagine it broken up.

Excellent visualization, thank you!

 Matrindur wrote:


I did a quick count of how much plastic is in the box to compare against Leviathan and Saturnine.
All sprues have those center fill rods where the plastic is pushed in with a small sprue having one of those and bigger sprues just have 2 or 4 of them. So you can count any sprue as a multiple of a small sprue with one fill rod. (Exception are the even smaller character sprues but none of those are in any of the three compared boxsets.

Armageddon has a total of 16 small sprues worth of plastic for the Space Marines and 19 small sprues worth of plastic for the Orks for a total of 35 small sprues of plastic.
Leviathan, which was 200€, has a total of 16 small sprues worth of plastic for the Space Marines and 18 small sprues worth of plastic for the Tyranids for a total of 34 small sprues of plastic so nearly the same.
Saturnine which is 252€ has 54 small sprues worth of plastic split between 25 for the Salamanders and 29 for the Iron Warriors so quite a bit more. But Saturnine was also full kits instead of push fit so less models per sprue, this number includes the upgrade sprues for the tactical marines and HH on average gives more plastic than 40k.

In the end I expect around 215€ to 225€ for Armageddon.

Counting sprues is probably the way go so perhaps not as bad I thought.

 Shakalooloo wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Big Mek is sitting down on the Waaagh Walker.

I really don’t know if I prefer that to him being stood up. It does give it a somewhat more industrial look. But is sitting down for a battle Orky?

Bikers do it all the time. And deff-koptas.

True. Sitting down to not get flung off a shaky vehicle seems like the kind of innovation that proves to other orks that the big mek is way smarter than them

The model is really nice in general, as well as the skorcha. Too bad most of the box is a waste for me, I'll have to wait until they are available separately.

I like everything about the Boyz, except the heads. Fortunately, there's no shortage of old style Nelson ork heads around. Great character models and Gretchin, lovely wartrakk, walker thingy seems like fine conversion fodder.

Marines are... fine? The Bolters are slowly morphing back into the proper shape, so that's nice. I like the new Speeder. It's not perfect, but it's probably the cleanest Primaris vehicle to date. The MM and AC need to swap places though. Characters are okay, although the Captain not having a power fist is a big miss.

I'll probably look to ebay for some Orks and the Speeder.

Having slept on it (metaphorically. I’m middle aged. I need a mattress, not a chunky hard cardboard box) I may pick this up after all.

I’ve got the Beastsnagga’s army box kicking about somewhere, so if I add that to the Orks here, I’ll have enough for a reasonable display collection.

Lorebook I’d keep. Marines and Rules and Cards? Probably bundle up and sell on to someone looking to play.

All depends on overall price.

 Matrindur wrote:

In the end I expect around 215€ to 225€ for Armageddon.

Given the muted reactions to this box online I'm starting to wonder if it'll be like Saturnine & Skaventide, and we'll end up seeing them heavily discounted by retailers just to clear space.

GW will have made so many of these and I have a feeling they're not going to fly off shelves as quick as previous years.

It’s almost the opposite, content wise, from Saturnine.

Saturnine included quite a few entirely new units and weapons. But under the rules, you can only pack so many into an army. For those of us with extensive collections already, the savings arguably weren’t there. After all, if you buy a unit at a discount but never field it? Did you get a bargain?

Here? There’s arguably only three new units. Vanguard Primaris, Waaagh Walker and Big Boss. Four…forgot the HB Eradicators.

Anyone who’s anyone that already plays Orks or Marines is already very likely well served for the other units, with possible exception of Jump Pack Chaplain.

So whilst I’m liking the actual sculpts? It doesn’t seem to have the same wow factor as Leviathan, which packed in loads of entirely new Tyranid Gribblies and Marine units, including an excellent glow up of Terminators. Which would of course drive sales as people want their extensive new toys at a cheaper than normal price.

So…is it a bad boxed set? No, I don’t consider it so. But I think it somewhat lacks the appeal of its immediate predecessor.

I do note they said each half is a Combat Patrol’s worth of models though. Which whilst I don’t recall it being addressed either way on stream, may point to this not being a FOMO Launch Box, but something intended as the Edition Long entry point?

Happy to be corrected on all these points, but especially the last one as I tuned out once the shiny new had been shown off.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I do note they said each half is a Combat Patrol’s worth of models though. Which whilst I don’t recall it being addressed either way on stream, may point to this not being a FOMO Launch Box, but something intended as the Edition Long entry point?

Happy to be corrected on all these points, but especially the last one as I tuned out once the shiny new had been shown off.

They said on stream each half is a bit larger than a combat patrol, and mentioned that the Orks were around 700-800pts total.

My expectation is that the long term starter set will be the marine half minus extra characters & vets (who seem to share a sprue), versus the ork half minus their extra characters & dakkarig. That should neatly make two combat patrol forces.

 xttz wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I do note they said each half is a Combat Patrol’s worth of models though. Which whilst I don’t recall it being addressed either way on stream, may point to this not being a FOMO Launch Box, but something intended as the Edition Long entry point?

Happy to be corrected on all these points, but especially the last one as I tuned out once the shiny new had been shown off.

They said on stream each half is a bit larger than a combat patrol, and mentioned that the Orks were around 700-800pts total.

My expectation is that the long term starter set will be the marine half minus extra characters & vets (who seem to share a sprue), versus the ork half minus their extra characters & dakkarig. That should neatly make two combat patrol forces.

They said that, so it's more than 2 CPs in this box. Im expecting a really scary price here.
I will get the marines half from someone splitting, but unlike leviathan where I liked both factions I will not commit to the full box.
I like the small books split though as opposed to a big huge one.
I think these will sell well but probably loads of stock too.

Pilot Pirx wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Ohman wrote:
I really can't wrap my head around the assembly of the boyz and grots. Some look almost identical except the feet?

You get effectively 2x of the sprue containing 1 Nob, 9 Boyz and 5 Gretchin. They look like the back and legs are mostly one piece with the front attaching on. Some of those fronts are interchangeable and some include arms as part of the bit. Heads seem to be separate. The result is 30 models made up of 15 models duplicated, but with enough swappable details that they pass as fairly unique looking until you start looking for the parts that repeat.

Most of the leg (not that Orks have much leg to begin with) seems to be on the front, as do all of the arms/weapons. The dorsal halves have some details that peek out into the front silhouette, such as Squigs and ammo pouches. As you say, only some swaps will work -- for example, the cosmetic equipment piece on the back seems to include the back half of the shoulder plate, meaning that some of those back cosmetic pieces will only pair with the front pieces that also have half of a shoulder plate.

The Blackstone Fortress Beastmen are indeed a good comparison, as are the original Deathwatch Overkill Cultists iirc. Something like this is how I imagine it broken up.

Spoiler:

Looks about right, but I think the joint is beneath the belt and not above the boots.

Looking at the builds of the Ork Boyz again, it seems there are two Nob heads and only nine Boyz heads. I'm fairly certain they said on the stream that there were loads of heads, only one per body is a bit lackluster.
The Boy they gave away at Adepticon did have two head options, but that sculpt isn't present in the box. Guess it might return as a mini of the month at some point.
I like the way they look, but I'm starting to (naively) hope that there is a more expansive kit later on. Special weapons also seem to be gone.

Not getting the entire thing either, the marine sculpts are too vanilla for me to buy the pushfit version. I might get the chaplain off ebay as conversion fodder for the right price, vanguard vets once we get the multipart kit.

Orks are decent, except for that walker thing, but nothing that would tempt me into collecting another faction. I have ghaz as a standalone and with dear sebastian joining him in a couple of weeks, that's good enough for me.

The contents are nice for what they're going for, but I think Marine players were most interested in seeing a Primaris update of the aging tactical and devastator kits - providing the old helmets as options.

At the end of the day its a long, drawn out preview for what boils down to "split with an Ork player" while stocks last. I think it would be a rare customer who collects both Marines and Orks and willing to pay out the £200 or whatever.

Hopefully they'll move on to other games now...

Sprues are:

Captain and Warboss (two halfs)

Intercessors (double frame)
Librarian and Vanguard vets (double frame)
Landspeeder (double frame)*
Ancient, Jump chaplain and Eradicators (triple frame)**


Big Boss, Banna Nob, Painboy (regular frame)**
Wierdboy (single half sized character frame)
Wartrack (triple frame)*
2x Orks and grots (big frame)
Dakkarig (Big frame)

*Not in the smallest set
**Not part of the combat patrol or smaller sets

Would be my guess, assuming they still have several starter editions.

I am hoping there's enough Mk7 style helmets for everyone; the models have a mix of the old Mk7 style and the Primaris style. Being push-fit I'd bet you will have to mix them. I've been hearing the price USD will be close to $300.