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So WarCom just posted this (as part of the The Art of #New40K article) -



Have we seen any of those Xenos races before? Is that a Rak'Gol at bottom-left?

That's not a Rak'Gol, they have 8 limbs. The one at the very bottom looks like a Saruthi to me and the one above the not Rak'Gol looks like an updated version of the thing on the right in the similar pic from the 3rd ed rulebook.

God those look cool.

Once again makes me wish the game had some mercenary "faction" like the one in Warmachine, as a home for small armies and one off units.

Hopefully that means some additions to the "Empire" side of the Tau and/or some of the Dark Eldar's mercenary forces. I really don't think we need to be adding more factions to the game when GW can't properly support the long established core xenos races let alone supporting their 10+ IoM factions.

Those mouths in the upper left-hand corner look pretty Nurgly to me. I wonder if we might get a xenos race or two with Chaos factions.

Or kill two birds with a slingle shot and make Chaos-tainted Xenos

Reminds me of the random illustrations in 6th edition rulebook more than an announcment though, who knows... Waiting is an emergency.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Or kill two birds with a slingle shot and make Chaos-tainted Xenos

That would be even better. Given how influential Chaos is in 40k, I think it's ridiculous that its only major interactions are with humans and Eldar. Chaos feeds on the emotions and actions of almost all living organisms, so there's bound to be other corrupted races.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Or kill two birds with a slingle shot and make Chaos-tainted Xenos

That would be even better. Given how influential Chaos is in 40k, I think it's ridiculous that its only major interactions are with humans and Eldar. Chaos feeds on the emotions and actions of almost all living organisms, so there's bound to be other corrupted races.

Jokes aside... yes, it would! That's the only missing aspect of Chaos to feel in the game to me: a canon xenos as a testimony of what Chaos can achieve. And displace the focus a bit on the xenos. Give bag chaos androids for the crons

Don't be surprised if nothing at all comes of this artwork.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Or kill two birds with a slingle shot and make Chaos-tainted Xenos

That would be even better. Given how influential Chaos is in 40k, I think it's ridiculous that its only major interactions are with humans and Eldar. Chaos feeds on the emotions and actions of almost all living organisms, so there's bound to be other corrupted races.

Certainly. They exist in the background already. Two of the major ones have already been mentioned ITT. It introduces so many new concepts, like what would a Khorne-worshipping invertebrate or cephalopod race pile high in reverence to their patron god? Do we have new spins on how the gods are worshipped by non humans? I've always been fascinated by the Inevitables in D&D and how Marut seems like a "corrupted" offshoot of Nurgle's agenda. You don't need to understand why an alien race sees it that way as the view is truly alien, which is what makes it so interesting to me.

In the 8th edition rulebook there was this cool artwork picturing all eldar factions, including corsairs, exodites and even chaos eldar. Unfortunately nothing followed from that picture, so it might be the same with the one in the OP. Would be happy to be proven wrong. Pestigors have been mentioned in 8th edition fluff as well and I guess they could be seen as chaos-Xenos (I know, actual beastmen aren't xenos in 40K, but they could change that).

Several of those could just be really mutated obliterators - eg the mushroomheaded beasts - a Nurgle Obliterator. GW has always had great art and its nice to see them experimenting with stuff that we might never see, it adds depth and inspiration to the setting.


And at the same time I want Exodites!

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Don't be surprised if nothing at all comes of this artwork.

I know - it's just artwork from the new rulebook. But it is nice!

Yeah, I think most of what was planning on saying was already said, but I think it's some really cracking artwork that I prefer to the glossy, painterly new art that was created for the eighth edition rulebook.

I think we do need more canon alien races with a bit more clear backstory but not necessarily more codecies - just more background information for us to experiment with hobbywise.

All hail the Gungus!

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
All hail the Gungus!

I saw this and thought it said "All hail the Chungus" and I was like...did I miss Big Chungus in there somewhere?

Anyway, were there not some rules somewhere (other than Rogue Trader) where you could sort of just create your own races for kitbashing small armies?

-STS

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

 ArcaneHorror wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Or kill two birds with a slingle shot and make Chaos-tainted Xenos

That would be even better. Given how influential Chaos is in 40k, I think it's ridiculous that its only major interactions are with humans and Eldar. Chaos feeds on the emotions and actions of almost all living organisms, so there's bound to be other corrupted races.

Jokes aside... yes, it would! That's the only missing aspect of Chaos to feel in the game to me: a canon xenos as a testimony of what Chaos can achieve. And displace the focus a bit on the xenos. Give bag chaos androids for the crons

Ahh....ahhhhhhhhhhh...../smugmode

It’s long been established that Chaos prefers humanity for much the same reasons as Genestealer Cults.

We’re numerous, we’re densely populated, and for the most part in 40k, we’re utterly miserable. Get your tentacles into humankind, and the sky is the limit for potential corruption.

Especially after the Great Crusade, where unknown numbers of lesser Xenos powers were utterly exterminated. And one suspects The Emperor had ways to ensure chaos tainted Xenos were extra special purged. Just in case.

beast_gts wrote:
Is that a Rak'Gol at bottom-left?

We know what the Rak'Gol look like:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Don't be surprised if nothing at all comes of this artwork.

This is exactly what I expect. Style over substance.

If he more than happy if they just have us a codex for xenos units with rules for Adding them to which ever army you run, except necrons & SM. Then you can source/make/kit bash the models yourself

It used to be 40k was packed with little throw away bits and pictures, it helped spark the imagination and make the universe feel big, mysterious, and alive. Before it turned into “everything you see you can buy fro us”

This might be a return to that ethos.

Also:
Spheres from Astartes?

I was cheeky and asked them on the Facebook if any of the new art would feature non-Primaris Space Marines.

 Nevelon wrote:
It used to be 40k was packed with little throw away bits and pictures, it helped spark the imagination and make the universe feel big, mysterious, and alive. Before it turned into “everything you see you can buy fro us”

This might be a return to that ethos.

Also:
Spheres from Astartes?

I agree and it’s nice to see scenes from the rest of the 40k universe but i think in this day and age there are so many options available to use I think there is much more desire to manifest this on the table top. In 2nd edition I’d never heard of green stuff or 3rd party models of kitbash but now this is common place. I remember during 2nd edition white dwarf had an army list for space pirates and it confused me because I there were no models. I was young.

Now I’d love to see these lists being created for people wanting to go to the effort of modelling their own army but as far as I am aware GW now only put out list for things you can buy like another SM chapter. Unless I’m missing something.

mrFickle wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
It used to be 40k was packed with little throw away bits and pictures, it helped spark the imagination and make the universe feel big, mysterious, and alive. Before it turned into “everything you see you can buy fro us”

This might be a return to that ethos.

Also:
Spheres from Astartes?

I agree and it’s nice to see scenes from the rest of the 40k universe but i think in this day and age there are so many options available to use I think there is much more desire to manifest this on the table top. In 2nd edition I’d never heard of green stuff or 3rd party models of kitbash but now this is common place. I remember during 2nd edition white dwarf had an army list for space pirates and it confused me because I there were no models. I was young.

Now I’d love to see these lists being created for people wanting to go to the effort of modelling their own army but as far as I am aware GW now only put out list for things you can buy like another SM chapter. Unless I’m missing something.

What did space pirates look like rulewise? Sounds great!

 Nevelon wrote:
It used to be 40k was packed with little throw away bits and pictures, it helped spark the imagination and make the universe feel big, mysterious, and alive. Before it turned into “everything you see you can buy fro us”

This might be a return to that ethos.

Also:
Spheres from Astartes?

Agreed. It’s one of the things that breaks my heart in this hobby with so much (relatively recent) art being literally what you can buy off of the shelves (the previewed art is a little guilty of that still with that new BA art featuring the ancient and chaplain we’ve seen in that blurry image of the maybe starter box). I love gak like the above as it gets the imagination going, but you can see it is purely a generational thing as even with that art I saw several people speculating on what new models these were as they’d been conditioned by GW to expect that everything depicted in their art is a mini.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
It used to be 40k was packed with little throw away bits and pictures, it helped spark the imagination and make the universe feel big, mysterious, and alive. Before it turned into “everything you see you can buy fro us”

This might be a return to that ethos.

Also:
Spheres from Astartes?

Agreed. It’s one of the things that breaks my heart in this hobby with so much (relatively recent) art being literally what you can buy off of the shelves (the previewed art is a little guilty of that still with that new BA art featuring the ancient and chaplain we’ve seen in that blurry image of the maybe starter box). I love gak like the above as it gets the imagination going, but you can see it is purely a generational thing as even with that art I saw several people speculating on what new models these were as they’d been conditioned by GW to expect that everything depicted in their art is a mini.

Sadly the push away from non-model artwork was entirely for legal reasons. The Chapterhouse fiasco showed it was always, "Everything you see you can buy, if not from us than someone else." And IP law is such that if you don't back up your words with actions, you can lose everything piece by piece.

“Legal reasons” neither GW nor Alan Merrett clearly understood...

Or they didn’t understand US legal stuff......being a British company, after all.

How is Chapterhouse doing these days?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Or they didn’t understand US legal stuff......being a British company, after all.

How is Chapterhouse doing these days?

What GW tried to do wouldn't have worked out any better here in the UK. When your head of IP doesn't understand the difference between copyright and trademark, it displays a fundamental failure in understanding the basics of IP law that transcends the differences in national legal systems.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Or they didn’t understand US legal stuff......being a British company, after all.

How is Chapterhouse doing these days?

Chapterhouse didn't lose that case. We did.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Don't be surprised if nothing at all comes of this artwork.

I wouldn't be. But its nice to see the studio thinking about things from the wider universe rather than Bog Standard <Model> with <weapon swap>.

And since the rules are model driven, something here could inspire one of the sculptors to do a mock-up that turns official and goes in a kit... Even if its a Blackstone Fortress kit, some of these would be nice to see. Especially Gun-Shroom.