angelofvengeance wrote:
What are cloud dancers?

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Just realised the Corsair Dancers have 2 seperate leadership values. I'm guessing this is tied to one of their special rules? I wonder what triggers the alternate value?

angelofvengeance wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Just realised the Corsair Dancers have 2 seperate leadership values. I'm guessing this is tied to one of their special rules? I wonder what triggers the alternate value?

Probably the Reckless Abandon rule??

Co'tor Shas wrote:Hopefully is has a good tradoff. I don't want a "negative effect because it's fluffy" sort of rule.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
Also did anyone see in Buttery Commissar's pic, the rather badass looking Knight behind the Atropos with the Eye of Horus on it?

Ok - this is going to be a long one, bear with me whilst I get all this out.



PRE-EVENT (08:00 - 10:00):

Managed to get to the building by ~08:10, and 6th in the queue. Literally I have never been as far forward in the queue as that, and it felt good until I realised that I had two hours to kill in a line by myself before the doors opened. The mood was good, most of us were veterans of multiple events so knew how this would work. Taking a quick temperature test of the people around and what they were excited for, it was mainly 1) Mastadon 2) Stormbird 3) Plastic 30k 4) New Knight but nothing really 40k related. The staff were on their game today - tickets were checked and leaflets distributed at 09:30, and seminar sign-ups followed shortly after (and crucially before the doors opened). Apparently they were expecting so much demand for the Citadel seminar that they were going to hold it twice with the same content, I shrugged - most people were talking ForgeWorld, and some were only gong to that seminar and ditching the Citadel one completely.



EVENT START (10:00):

Doors open promptly and we head inside. A couple of the people in front start to peruse the GW store at the top of the stairs, some other head towards the display cabinets, others towards the Golden Daemon display, and I was first in the ForgeWorld sales queue.

FIRST

I shouldn't be, but being to so many events, Games Days, Open Days, etc, to be the first person in the queue actually fills me with pride. "You made it Mike, you did it!" my inner monologue congratulated me. Yeah, I should really get out more...

I've already discussed the new Leviathan dread, that was a pleasant and unexpected surprise, which caught a lot of people out as it was not advertised. As I was queuing to pay they were scrambling to get codes, and the guy behind with two knights was overhearing stuff. He didn't know what they were, nor that they were available as the guy dealing with him at the sales desk didn't offer and there was no advertising for it. By the time he found out the queue was massive, no chance of getting one. Also most of the temporary tills they had set up were in Euros initially, so all purchases were being funneled through the BL and FW stores rather than in the sales area, but were quickly rectified.



DISPLAY CABINETS:

Display cabinets were in their usual space, behind Bugmans. ForgeWorld had one side, GW the other, and the short end was a White Dwarf table weirdly. The ForgeWorld cabinets were a bit spartan from what we've been treated to previously, the only new stuff were items that could be purchased on the day, the completed Ordinatus Ulator, and the CAD for the Ordinatus Sagitar (and some books with transfers and brass etch in). Mark Bedford was doing some painting in his new Dark Mechanicum colour scheme to a Triaros, alongside a cabinet with 3 Knights and a Thanatar already done in the bone colour. Surprisingly he was able to do the painting of the two Knights and the Thanatar part time over two weeks (e.g. over lunch breaks), and he may have convinced me to go and buy more Mech stuff from the ForgeWorld store.

The GW cabinets felt familiar. One set had a lot of the Adeptus Mechanicus in it, another had a lot of the new Tau models in (up to, but not beyond this weekends release). There were a couple of designers there, they had the demo pod, but there was nothing "new". Sure some people thought it was good to see the models, but these are the same exact models that we see on their website, and in White Dwarf, and no doubt shortly in Visions - just now we can see them behind a sheet of glass. It was difficult to get excited about anything. I did overhear peoples conversations about various things - but anything about the future was shot down quickly, so no news about anything beyond this weeks releases.



OTHER STUFF:

There were some gaming tables that were available, and being used as well. ForgeWorld had brought along their Titan game from the Open Day. One long board, two teams with a Warlord, Reaver and two Warhounds going against each other, with big foam dice for rolling on the floor. There were cabinets showcasing some Golden Daemon and Armies on Parade entries, and some really bizarre stuff. There was one shelf with a converted marine force that was Nurgle that felt very disturbing in some places, even including a converted Lord of Skulls nurgle-fied - brilliant, yet deeply disturbing in places.

Exhibition was freely open, and you could just wander around. Most of it was the same, although there was a new AoS large diorama early on that was impressive. The new Tau / AdMech board was near the end (after the Ultra / Khorne behemoth of a piece), and was just a bit meh. Yeah, it had loads of models, there was a Manta, some new terrain pieces and some clever construction, but only really holds your attention for 5 minutes. If it's the first time your there, it's not going to be the thing you remember straight away from the walkthrough, and may not even be the second or third thing either.



CITADEL DESIGN SEMINAR (12:30 - 13:30):

Presented by one of the GW rules designers and Laurie Goulding (representing the rules, and the narrative).

The first part of this Seminar came down to a run through of how they make the rules and narrative for a new model. The cynic in you starts to roll it's eyes when one of the opening sentences is along the lines of "We start when a new model is presented to Design Team, and we're told to come up with some rules and background for it". This sounds exaggerated, like someone from the miniatures side of the building produces a KV128 Stormsurge (built and painted to 'Eavy Metal standard) and says "We made this, make rules and background so we can sell it!" - but this is literally the example we were given! I know!

We were then told how they assign a rules designer and a writer to come up with everything from what it should be called, what it's rules are, some interesting info about it, etc. It really did feel like is was a " ... For Dummies" view of the process, and was really obvious - you assumed that this was how they did things, and they told you it was.

Q&A followed, but with a very clear edict from the start. There were to be no questions about future releases or direction, as they were not allowed to answer anything about that, and all questions had to be GW related. by now you could feel the mood in the room was really quite low, but there were some good questions raised that were answered in a fashion. There was one about the determination of whether a new unit is a Super-Heavy Walker vs a Gargantuan Creature, which had some nice anecdotal stories but came down to a "it depends" answer. Another good question was around determining points cost for a new model / unit, which again had some nice anecdotal stories but came down to a "think what a decent value is, playtest, adjust". Nothing really insightful, more confirming what we already knew.

FAQs was broached, specifically around when would we get a new batch as a lot are really old now. They let that one past even though technically it dealt with future operations, and again it felt like a wishy-washy answer. Are they going to go through a big batch of FAQs? - No. What they do do is look at more Erratas than FAQs (i.e. issues with mistakes rather than confusion) and seek to correct them where possible. This could result in changing out digital content where appropriate, or for physical copies of books may require pages being swapped out when a new run is ordered. The focus here was more around fixing mistakes rather than addressing points of confusion that an FAQ would cover. Therefore if your FAQ can be solved by a tightening of the rules, they'd prefer to do it that way. Personally, I think this is a cop-out, but this is from the same seminar that hammers it home that they don't want you discussing anything beyond this week, and miniatures come first with rules and story in 2nd and 3rd place.

Oh, and Laurie got special dispensation to reveal 4 new pieces of artwork for the next 4 HH novels. We saw two today (War Without End, and Pharos), and the other two will be shown tomorrow. Apparently the HH novel series is already set out, and they know how many there will be and what they will cover - I'm not sure what to make of that, or whether it's true, but it's what Laurie said so I have to give some degree accuracy. FYI - for those debating whether the jump pack marines in Pharos are Night Lords or Ultramarines, they're Night Lords. Also War Without End has a particularly 'Gangsta' Imperial Fist with his arms crossed over his chest.

Colour me disillusioned on this one.



FORGEWORLD SEMINAR (13:30 - 14:30):

This is the Seminar people were wanting to see, and I've covered off in pictures the bulk of what was previewed from the PowerPoint slide pack. Andy Hoare and Mark Bedford heading this one up.

The theme of the book are the Shadow Wars - don't be confused, these isn't the Shadow Crusade of Lorgar and Angron over Ultramar (a.k.a "Boyz on Tour - 007M31 to ?"), but is instead covering the events on the perimiter of the war and away from the Primarchs and other big characters and campaigns. it's battles where small forces on both sides are enagaging on multiple fronts, but isn't focussed in any one part of the galaxy. It's another Conquest book, but we knew that.

From a narrative perspective there's 5 campaigns that are covered, and will cover the forces detailed earlier (Blood Angels, Dark Angels, White Scars, Shatterred Legions, Blackshields and Knights Errant). The first three Legions will be covered off in the campaigns to give them some background and feel for them before they get their full book release, so it looks like White Scars will be facing off against the Alpha Legion. These aren't the notorious battles, but smaller incidents not directly in line with the bulk of their Legion forces. Shattered Legions aren't just the three surviving loyalist Legions from Istvvan V, but can be any groups of Legions. You can use the ruleset to represent Traitor forces looking to mop up loyalist remains from Istvvan V (as per Tybalt Mar from the Meduson novel), or for loyalist elements in traitor legions who have banded together in the fight for the Emperor, or even within Loyalist elements that weren't at Istvvan (say Imperium Secondus Legions) or even combining loyalist elements of traitor legions with loyalists, and vice-versa. This looks like it could be complicated rules wise, but also apparently gives some new ways of looking at army building and collecting.

Blackshields are starting to be fleshed out now. They're definately developed from simply being a collection of loyalists from traitor legions who have shed their colours, and are now being moved to a much more aggressive and combat-hungry group who have shed their Legion identity for any number of reasons. One example we were given to was that Blackshield units wouldn't be traditional Legion units, and for example wouldn't have Tactical squads because they no longer think in terms of Legion doctrine. A follow on in the Q&A also drives this a bit further, with a question around Iron Hands Legion rules for after Ferrus' death. Apparently the Iron Hands will have a new RoW for post Istvvan V which builds on the loss of their Primarch and how they develop into the Meduson led Legion they becomes, or alternatively moddelling them around the Blackshield rules to show the extent of their fall to madness and throwing everything to the wind for vengeance.

Knights Errant, apparently included so everyone would stop asking about when they / Garro would be included. They're not squads. There will be Garro and the Ultramarines Librarian (don't know the name, haven't listened to the audios) as special characters, and customisable HQ choice dubbed "build your own Knight Errant". Apparently you can give him skills and weapons / items to reflect your own character. Could be fun, but I know some will be disappointed around not having a full force of them.



For new units, most of the stuff in there we've already seen models for and just get rules for. For the Ordinatus, these are the Ordinatus Minor in the Mechanicum Red Book just given page space in the main book. The Conemptor-Cortus is apparently a lighter-weight Contemptor, quick on it's feet and more designed for combat and getting in close. Described at one point as 'Scrappy', which made me make the correlation that if a regular Contemptor was Scooby doo, the Cortus would be Scrappy doo - smaller and more aggressive. We'll see what the model is like.



Artwork - the Salamanders 'Disciple of the Flames' is apparently similar to that annoying character in Deathfire that constantly shouts "VULKAN LIVES!!!" the whole way through the book. Kind of a chaplain in feel (my interpretation) that preaches about the survival / denounces the death of Vulkan within the Legion. For the Dark Angels apparently Book VI will have three Wings documented: Iron Wing, Dread Wing (I think, anybody confirm?) and the precursor of the Raven Wing. I can't remember about the Blackshield Chymeriae, I think I was uploading pics at the time and may have missed it - although it is interesting to see it in MkV.



Horus Heresy Masterclass book is at the printers, and should be available soonish, maybe a couple of months. Also Retribution (hard not to call it Retalliation) has been finished and is about to be sent to the printers, with an ETA of the next Weekender for release (first weekend of February)



For the 40k fans on the forum jonesing for some 40k news from a 40k open day, the new Doom of Mymeara book is imminent, and the Eldar section is a complete re-write from an army list side. New rules, new units, new HQs, worked from the bottom up. We got some previews of Corsair jetbikes (upgrade kit) and new Wraithknight. Nothing about the Imperial side of the action (nothing on an absent Bran Redmaw either)



Delving into the Q&A:
◾Alpha Legion headhunters came back from production on Friday and are looking good, so should be release soonish.
◾Tyrant Siege Termies are a bit weird. Previously we heard they were near complete, but it looks like they've not had the go-ahead as people weren't happy with them and are being re-done. interestingly It think they said they were being re-purposed for use within the Blackshields, and so would have to be re-done from the ground-up rather than touch-up what they already had. Again, a second source on that would be appreciated.
◾Garro would be released probably before Retribution is released, but not sure when.
◾Questoris Knight list would be updated with the new Warden / Crusader plastic kit as well as the new Atrapos.
◾I'll try to see if anything jogs my memory, but these were the salient points I think.



OVERALL:

I left not long after the ForgeWorld Seminar. I got some pics of Garro in the cabinets, and headed out.

For a "40k Open" day, there wasn't a lot of openness around 40k. There was literally nothing to get you excited about anything, anything there was already seen in White Dwarf or on the main GW site (or from leaks on the web). There was minimal Black Library presences, which I though was odd considering there's a huge 40k related (32k maybe) book series taking over the entirity of next year. Lots of people wanted to know something more about the upcoming stuff, and it was all shut down quickly and effectively. Not a sniff of plastic 30k anywhere, even the Tau / Raven Guard campaign was barely there. The demo pods looked ok, although I spent an equivalent time talking to Mark Bedford about painting big stompy robots, but if you take away ForgeWorld (cabinets and sales), I'm not sure how much different it would be from a regular weekday in Warhammer World? gaming tables, sure, they'd be there to play on outside of the event. The Exhibition Hall is still open, and you can see all the current GW merchandise assembled and painted. Literally the only thing would be being able to meet and talk to people within the Design team, and a Seminar that confirmed a lot of what you already assumed. At least ForgeWorld got you excited about something and provided some decent talking points, without that I think I would be asking for my money back on the ticket price.



This isn't meant to be read as a GW rant, and please don't kill this thread based on this Mods, but I think GW are just taking the mickey on the clampdown of rumours and leaks. I didn't come out of that event inspired to do more 40k, I didn't come out of that event feeling I'd learnt something useful / interesting / positive about the behind-the-scenes of the GW / 40k machine. I feel like I've walked through a living White Dwarf experience, and I stopped buying that a long time ago. I think I would have been more impressed with a factory tour rather than a seminar, actually going around the inner workings of the production process, and if they conveniently left something out as a one-off allowed leak of an upcoming thing as a "oops, who left that there!" it would have been obvious, but would have given you something to talk about and look forward to. I just can't see what I got out of this event that I wouldn't have got out of by going to my local store (leaving ForgeWorld to one side), and going to Warhammer World when it isn't an Event day. This could have been something cool, and I feel it was a squandered opportunity.

And this is going to be the same thing tomorrow, with swapping out a couple of things (i.e. HH novel artwork), so I just hope nobody bought tickets for both events.



Anyway, I'll try and jog my memory on anything else. No Alan Bligh, so nothing around future timeline of Heresy books beyond Retribution, no Primarch discussion, nothing around Stormbird / Mastadon release.

[*]Book 6 is delayed. Expected in the new year, most likely February.
[*]Horus Heresy Masterclass Book is ready for the printers, expected around February again.
[*]Horus Heresy Weekender is broadly scheduled for early February (spot a pattern?)
[*]As people have mentioned all Legions will have one new RoW. BA, DA, WS all having 2 RoW to make up for their lack so far. There will also be 6 other generic RoW`s.
[*]There is planned to be a reworking of the CAL red book at "some point in the future" to bring in line all the extra Legion vehicles / troops that have (will) appear.
[*]A re-look at the first four Legions elite troops (not Legion Special Rules) as some recognition that they are not as powerful as the later Legions (Justearin were mentioned specifically).
[*]Some of this rebalancing will be through the new RoW`s - Emperors Children for example will have a RoW that makes Kakopohonie (sp) troops and grants them Relentless.
[*]Other RoW will reflect tactics on the road to Terra. SoH RoW for example amongst other things grants all SoH weapons Master-Crafted on the first turn to reflect greater supply than other Legions due to Horus` influence.
[*]New missions in Book 6 reflect "dirty wars" happening behind the lines. Legions with personal grudges settling them in the traditional manner; different objectives and VP`s earnt compared to normal missions.
[*]Knights Errant can be customisable so you can create your own. However, any army with a Knights Errant has specific victory conditions that if the KE does not complete, your army may only draw!
[*]They made a mistake in the Age of Darkness missions: the rule that if you have no models on the table at any point is an auto lose should be the same as the main rule book not as written in the mission brief - this will be amended to fit the main rules.
[*]The Stormbird is still being worked on. Its huge and turned into a nightmare.
[*]New Dark Mechanicum knight house in Book 6. The colour scheme is as per the new knight released on Friday and looks very pretty. May well have decals released in the future.
[*]The new brass sets for the Iron Warriors and Night Lords have a stencil built in for the chevrons for the IW and the lightning and Nostroman writing for the NL. This will be a new feature of the brass sheets going forward.
[*]There has already been lots of information about the Leviathan Siege dreadnaught. Suffice to say, its a dreadnaught with quad autocannon and twin volkite calivers - what`s not to like?
[*]One primarch is being sculpted and another is in the demo process - no confirmation on which ones.
[*]Magnus will not be larger than the other primarchs so that he fits into the range easier. Simon is having a nightmare thinking of how to sculpt with Magnus because of his eye and the horns on the armour.
[*]There are currently no plans to develop the Solar Auxilia further than the moment other than to finish the range with the medicae and the special character.
[*]There are also no plans to develop a Red Book for the combined Solar Auxilia, Warp Cult / Imperial Militia and Knight House but this wasn`t ruled out if the range expanded.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 angelofvengeance wrote:
Also did anyone see in Buttery Commissar's pic, the rather badass looking Knight behind the Atropos with the Eye of Horus on it?

The Knights behind the Atropos (assuming we're talking about the same pic) are the Cerastuses that are already released.

 aka_mythos wrote:

 Dryaktylus wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Battle bunnies is wrong, we have only seen a single picture of a black shield, and it has 4 lines of text, none of which goes with anything battle bunnies are saying.

From the FW Open Day Amsterdam:

there're 'Black Shields' in the book (Andy Hoare and Alan Bligh created them for Deathwatch). Here they're Marines who left their Legion and fight just for themselves

Source was Arac from Tabletopwelt.de

In Deathwatch Blackshields are presented with more of a penitent slant, where their dishonored chapter's iconography is obliterated. With shattered legions and the general emphasis on guerrilla warfare that comes with that, I'd guess that the Blackshields are gonna be the loyalist survivors of the traitor legions.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Were those revealed today?
That's a slap in the face for everyone who bought tickets on the Saturday.
They already made folk pick between seeing today's Golden Daemon and not, and screwed up on the talk capacity.

Wouldn't mind so much if it'd been transparent to begin with.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Fair. It could be I'm just very spaced and missed it all entirely.

 zedmeister wrote:

Spoiler: