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New from Valrak -

He now believes there is a new, 40k version of Guilliman coming after all (as well as a 30k version).

GW are working on an updated Rhino kit (hopefully the roof is easier to build without any gaps - me).

HH will be getting all the current resin Custodes models moved to plastic save for the flyers (hopefully they remain playable in 40k - me).

 The Phazer wrote:
New from Valrak -

He now believes there is a new, 40k version of Guilliman coming after all (as well as a 30k version).

GW are working on an updated Rhino kit (hopefully the roof is easier to build without any gaps - me).

HH will be getting all the current resin Custodes models moved to plastic save for the flyers (hopefully they remain playable in 40k - me).

Well, poop, I just got a Telemon...

Nothing will trigger a resculpt in plastic like buying the old resin version of something.

 BorderCountess wrote:

 The Phazer wrote:
New from Valrak -

He now believes there is a new, 40k version of Guilliman coming after all (as well as a 30k version).

GW are working on an updated Rhino kit (hopefully the roof is easier to build without any gaps - me).

HH will be getting all the current resin Custodes models moved to plastic save for the flyers (hopefully they remain playable in 40k - me).

Well, poop, I just got a Telemon...

Since you don't want it anymore...

In all honesty, I bet your version will look cooler than the new plastic one.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

 The Phazer wrote:
New from Valrak -

He now believes there is a new, 40k version of Guilliman coming after all (as well as a 30k version).

GW are working on an updated Rhino kit (hopefully the roof is easier to build without any gaps - me).

HH will be getting all the current resin Custodes models moved to plastic save for the flyers (hopefully they remain playable in 40k - me).

Well, poop, I just got a Telemon...

Since you don't want it anymore...

In all honesty, I bet your version will look cooler than the new plastic one.

I can just hear the Lore explaination now. Cawl unlocks a door deep in the depths of the Palace and discovers more Custodes Dreadnought variations than there has ever been Custodes listed in the archives. This uber secret sect not only will replenish the ranks of the Custodes, but they have been reading the only copies of "How to Maintain the golden Throne" for the last 10K years.

 Theophony wrote:
I can just hear the Lore explaination now. Cawl unlocks a door deep in the depths of the Palace and discovers more Custodes Dreadnought variations than there has ever been Custodes listed in the archives. This uber secret sect not only will replenish the ranks of the Custodes, but they have been reading the only copies of "How to Maintain the golden Throne" for the last 10K years.

Or maybe it all comes from .

Not sure why we need a new Guilliman model when there are other Loyalist Primarchs they could bring back (Russ, Vulkan, The Khan).

I have a spicy prediction for Valrak’s next 11th edition video:

The rumoured new Ork Boys and Dreadnought are going to be modern takes on the Goffs and cardboard dreadnought from the 2nd edition starter set.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Not sure why we need a new Guilliman model when there are other Loyalist Primarchs they could bring back (Russ, Vulkan, The Khan).

Shadow Mode Corax would probably be the most interesting sculpt.

Regardless of what Valrak has to say, I'm holding out hope for Dark Eldar in the 11th edition box.

 Dysartes wrote:
Regardless of what Valrak has to say, I'm holding out hope for Dark Eldar in the 11th edition box.

Why? It's pretty certain it won't be and he's said a few times now that DE will be getting a pretty substantial addition early in 11th anyway.

Lets face it, Tyranids and Necrons did fantastic with their new-edition model updates, but neither faction was crying out for the wholesale updates that they got. Meanwhile at the same time Craftworld was rocking around with very old sculpts, finecast and so forth and didn't feature in the starter set for an update.

So how "much" a faction "needs" an update is not always factored into if they appear in the starter set for a launch. That said it's also clear that it doesn't stop GW updating a faction with some big strides. Eldar are almost fully updated now and the hints that there might be an updated Falcon/Vyper type unit coming (plus what looks like a hornet) means that they are getting even more of an update.

Necrons are also steadily getting more shiny things and whittling down the number of old models or finecast in their system



Dark Eldar getting a chunky new Codex and update would be fantastic; esp seeing a good many iconic units returning like the beastmaster.

 Jack Flask wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Regardless of what Valrak has to say, I'm holding out hope for Dark Eldar in the 11th edition box.

Why? It's pretty certain it won't be and he's said a few times now that DE will be getting a pretty substantial addition early in 11th anyway.

A, I don't like Valrak.
B, I'd rather see Dark Eldar in there for a second go than Orks being in there for a third go.

 Overread wrote:
Lets face it, Tyranids and Necrons did fantastic with their new-edition model updates, but neither faction was crying out for the wholesale updates that they got. Meanwhile at the same time Craftworld was rocking around with very old sculpts, finecast and so forth and didn't feature in the starter set for an update.

So how "much" a faction "needs" an update is not always factored into if they appear in the starter set for a launch. That said it's also clear that it doesn't stop GW updating a faction with some big strides. Eldar are almost fully updated now and the hints that there might be an updated Falcon/Vyper type unit coming (plus what looks like a hornet) means that they are getting even more of an update.

Necrons are also steadily getting more shiny things and whittling down the number of old models or finecast in their system

This might be special pleading, but I think the issue is how big a wave is.
Eldar got a lot of units in 9th and 10th (and may get a few more yet) - but I think Tyranids got more all in one go. Suspect the same would be true of Necrons in 9th.

Admittedly, if GW would do the equivalent for DE as Eldar in either 9th or 10th, that would be the biggest DE release in 16 years.
It comes down to whether you think they need to refresh everything. I mean I'd argue Kabalites/Wyches etc hold up reasonably well. But they are becoming quite old sculpts. In a world where Guilliman is getting a bit dated after 10 years or so.

I guess deep down I'm suspect GW would go "we screwed up with the Ork Boys refresh, lets have another go". Not saying its never happened before, but its not usually been their approach. But then 2021 will be 5 years ago rather than a blink of an eye.

Dark Eldar are missing some units. Special/Named characters (Headtaker, Duke Sliscus, and I’m sure there’s another one). Court of the Archon needs to come to plastic.

Not a player, but I wouldn’t say no to separate kits for the Fancy Trueborn Warriors and those Elite Wyches I’m afraid I can’t recall the name of.

Grotesques desperately need plastic. Not just because I hate resin, but they need the model variety.

Beyond those? The existing range absolutely holds up. And for those wanting a refresh? Be careful what you wish for, as you may lost the modularity. New units I’m typically welcoming of, but not being particularly invested in Dark Eldar, I’ve no particular suggestions

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Not a player, but I wouldn’t say no to separate kits for the Fancy Trueborn Warriors and those Elite Wyches I’m afraid I can’t recall the name of.

Not that there's anything stopping them coming back, but they've been gone since the 10th edition index. You could argue that the Kabalite kill-team might count as a replacement for Trueborn I suppose.

I kinda, ish, get why they were removed. Other than weapon loadout it takes a variant paint scheme to delineate Trueborn (slightly better stats, more reliable armour) from Kabalite Warriors.

So they do need a separate kit. What you or I might think about the design studio’s priorities? Presumably said new kit wasn’t on the slate this time around, so out they come.

Hopefully that’ll be addressed in the near future.

I guess it depends on the kit - but I think most of the "veteran so it can take 4 special weapons" units have gone from 40k. If they roll out Trueborn/Bloodbrides/Haemoxytes (yeah, I had to look that one up) as just... the same kit but with a few extra weapons, I think its potentially a waste.

In my view the issue is that a bit like Necrons and Tyranids, Dark Eldar are seemingly finished. Sure you can look at making a plastic Court of the Archon, Grots and Beastmaster+friends, but there isn't obvious unit types missing. They fundamentally need a new vision - and a load of "new stuff" on the back of that. That will double-up on roles, but gives scope for buying models and collecting/building a new army.

Eldar arguably didn't get that - its mostly been 1:1 refreshes. But then Eldar have arguably been the most defined multi-faction faction since 2nd edition. You've had Guardians+Psykers, Wraiths, Aspect Warriors, Jet Bikes etc. Alongside Space Marines and Orks they had the breadth. (Guard for instance could run "all infantry" or "all tanks" - but the level of spam wasn't quite the same imo.) Dark Eldar really suffered from the idea that you could (and should) split the book in 3.5 factions, but with half or a third of a the units.

Anyway this feels in danger of going off topic. If Orks are in the starter, what are they going to get across about 10 different kits?

There’s room to explore new Cults as kind-of-aspect analogues.

Currently they’ve Wyches, Incubi, Hellions, Reavers and Scourges.

Pleasingly, they’re not so lazy as to be “Aspects But With Spikes”. But within the army, they serve much the same purpose. Highly specialised units which need to be set upon their preferred prey.

And there is design room for more. What they should or could be I’ll leave to those more invested in the army. But as someone fond of the aesthetic but otherwise not massively invested, I don’t think my opinion there would carry much weight.

A plastic Asdrubael Vect would be pretty gnarly...

Tyel wrote:
If Orks are in the starter, what are they going to get across about 10 different kits?

It would be interesting if they didn't just have 'generic orks' but instead focused on one specific clan (or other faction like KoS, freebootaz, etc.)
Death Skulls could have Mad Dok Grotsnik, who might tie in with new units like madboys or cyborks. The range could be rounded out with various looted vehicles.
Bad Moons could have Nazdreg, and we need a plastic weirdboy. Other than that though, I'm not sure how well BM suit specialist units.
Goffs have been the posta-boyz for a long time, but they suffer from being the most 'generic' of the clans, with only stormboys as their distinctive favoured unit, although the old Goff musicians were pretty great and could be re-visited.
Evil Suns feel like they have plenty of support in the form of light vehicles, but nob bikers and Wazdakka Gutzmek have been sadly missed.
Snake Bites feel like they suffer from confusion with beast snaggaz, and probably look too primitive to headline the starter set of a 'sci fi' wargame. Would be fun to have old Zogwort and a bunch of squigs in plastic though.
Blood Axes are probably right out, given that their central concept is to be un-orky orks (and so awful for giving people an impression of what orks are like in the setting) and working with humans (possibly leading to misconceptions about which side are the sympathetic faction). I would dearly love to see some looted vehicles and human (or abhuman, or other xenos) mercenaries working for the orks though.
Overall, DS and BM would seem the most promising clans for special treatment.

In terms of generic ork stuff, the most obvious remaining gap is the lack of a plastic weirdboy / warphead. There are a handful of infantry units and characters from the past or background which could return; madboys, 'ardboyz, stikkbommaz, etc. but they are really not that distinct from basic boyz. A more elite unit of runts might be cool, possibly adding a sniper unit to the line-up. Just re-sculpting some of the older kits seems generally more likely, which would be disappointing as most of them look fine (the main problem is that some of the older ones have the single tubular buttock, but it's not universal and easily covered up). The more promising 'concept space' for innovation would be new vehicles. There's a virtually unlimited range of possibilities, but the most obvious one would be a proper tank. Some of the older vehicle kits like the battlewagon and trukk could see an update; getting the option for rokkit launchas back would be nice, and I'm sure GW would like to have all the BW options in one neat casting. Some kind of mek-vehicle or mek-biker unit would be fun.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Beyond those? The existing range absolutely holds up. And for those wanting a refresh? Be careful what you wish for, as you may lost the modularity. New units I’m typically welcoming of, but not being particularly invested in Dark Eldar, I’ve no particular suggestions

You know, that's what I fear about Orks when they become the edition starter faction. Orks still have some of GW's best kits, like the nob, the Trukk, stormboyz and others. They also constantly got something new in most editions, unlike Dark Eldar, which usually lost stuff.
So, I'm not really sure where they want to go with this, but it's likely they'll just blow up all cross-kit compatibility, give us some monopose shoota Boyz for 40€, monopose choppa Boyz for 40€, split Lootas and burnaz and mini meks, throw in the occasional bespoken special weapon you never heard of, change some armour types and weapons around like they did with tankbustaz and in the end they did a lot of stuff with the faction to make it even more expensive and of which nothing is actually needed.

Personally I think the reason Dark Eldar are not in the edition starter is either because they never sold as much as other non-imperial factions or GW couldn't really come up with a large world-changing narrative that explains why Dark Eldar of all things now should do a large scale assault on the Imperium that somehow rivals the stuff the necrons and tyranids did. (Yeah, well, Mortarion and the Death Guard actually also just conquered 3 stars and made it into the starter, but at least they threatened Macragge)

GW can come up with whatever background story to make the faction they are trying to sell look totally badass. Want the Dark Eldar to become the big baddy, just claim that Asdrubael Vect is torturing the Khan and is now planning on accessing the Emperor's Golden Throne!

 Dysartes wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Not sure why we need a new Guilliman model when there are other Loyalist Primarchs they could bring back (Russ, Vulkan, The Khan).

Shadow Mode Corax would probably be the most interesting sculpt.

Regardless of what Valrak has to say, I'm holding out hope for Dark Eldar in the 11th edition box.

I actually would like to see a raven and wolf release, of old man russ and corax in beast modes. The symbiotic relationship between real wolves and ravens is interesting to see and could create some really evocative imagery of both chapters fighting alongside in complementary ways.

I don't think GW consider the DE to be big bad threat as an opponent in a starter box. They only got it once when they were first released.

They've pretty much only rotated between chaos, orks, necrons and nids. as the big bad.

Every other faction has to fit in the cracks between them

DE aren't anywhere near popular enough to be a headliner. It wasn't that long ago that they seemed like they were going to be consolidated into their bigger brother who, despite being competitively popular, really don't have that much broad appeal either.

It's a somewhat overused argument when it comes to 40k ranges so my apologies for dragging it up again, but how much of that impopularity is rooted in their neglect?

The last time DE had a properly stellar range was what, 5th edition? 6th? By 2026 standards they are in a fairly miserable state. I actually think kits like the basic Kabalite Warriors and Raider are fundamentally excellent designs, but they ultimately show their age on a technical level, and their range is plagued with finecast kits (which are now largely being culled rather than refreshed).

I think they deserve a shot. I agree that an edition launch feature may be brave, but they for sure could use the Aeldari's treatment.

 Ashiraya wrote:
It's a somewhat overused argument when it comes to 40k ranges so my apologies for dragging it up again, but how much of that impopularity is rooted in their neglect?

The last time DE had a properly stellar range was what, 5th edition? 6th? By 2026 standards they are in a fairly miserable state. I actually think kits like the basic Kabalite Warriors and Raider are fundamentally excellent designs, but they ultimately show their age on a technical level, and their range is plagued with finecast kits (which are now largely being culled rather than refreshed).

I think they deserve a shot. I agree that an edition launch feature may be brave, but they for sure could use the Aeldari's treatment.

I expect they will, but just as with the eldar, they will get it in the cracks between editions.


The eldar, votann and tau are on the 'good guy' side of 40k with imperial armies, but will never get prime position in starter box either. They aren't bad guy galactic ending threats so they won't get to be imperial antagonists in a starter box either. They are arguably in a worse position than something like the DE because they have no chance of being on either side of the starter. At least the DE have the possibility of being an antagonist with a new Asdrubael even if they won't.



If you look back at the history of 40k, the craftworlds are older than almost every faction, including most marine chapters and yet have never been in a starter set. They are the longest running faction that has never been in one.

 Ashiraya wrote:
It's a somewhat overused argument when it comes to 40k ranges so my apologies for dragging it up again, but how much of that impopularity is rooted in their neglect?

The last time DE had a properly stellar range was what, 5th edition? 6th? By 2026 standards they are in a fairly miserable state. I actually think kits like the basic Kabalite Warriors and Raider are fundamentally excellent designs, but they ultimately show their age on a technical level, and their range is plagued with finecast kits (which are now largely being culled rather than refreshed).

I think they deserve a shot. I agree that an edition launch feature may be brave, but they for sure could use the Aeldari's treatment.

Not convinced there's any evidence DE are especially unpopular beyond the fact its an older range that isn't pushed.
Okay there were still Covid lockdowns in 2021 - but for that year when DE were the best faction in the game, they were suddenly mysteriously everywhere. Tournament faction popularity isn't going to be a 1:1 with sales, but I think you could see the difference with something like Harlequins, a genuinely "rare" faction, that even when top faction a few times was still seeing a relatively low player rate, because the models simply didn't "exist" in circulation.

Its the same sort of argument as "Sisters of Battle are intrinsically unpopular because people didn't buy very expensive metal blister packs". Flash forward 20~ years with a new plastic army and they seem to sell fine.

Admittedly there have been some DE/Eldar "failures". But that's usually "hey, hey, here's a bargain (...) box with some new minis - but also a Venom from 2010 and a Vyper from before the fall of the Berlin Wall. We'll price it at a 10% discount. You in? No? Clearly you hate these factions."

As I recall some of those "failed" releases were back when GW was doing duel box armies and they'd put new models alongside a bunch of older ones. Long term fans didn't want anything but the new models and they could take a year to come on individual sale.

Meanwhile the boxed set was a pain to have to sell on the half you didn't want.

There was also the whole end-of-kirby era marketing which I think caused no end of headaches. Eg creating Primaris and Regular Marine lines at the same time side by side in the same army instead of the normal upgrade of sculpts.
Eldar got the "lets mash them into one army" Yinnari approach which fizzled cause on the one hand you had DE who were losing options at that time and on the other Craftworld with a very old line of plastics and finecast models.


We seem to be past that on both fronts and whilst those elements are still around they are more settled.

Personally I just don't think DE make for very good main antagonists because they're not supposed to be big bads. They're a smaller scale villain and honestly something the game could use more of. They represent a unique brand and scale of villainy in the setting, but not one I think makes for a good headliner.

A 40K Quest game ”escape the arena of torment” with loads of cool-weird drukkhari models world be great, an then GW can forget about them for another decade.