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[Post New] 2025/01/07 13:44:34
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in us
Boosting Ultramarine Biker




Hamburg

Taking over from Mad Doc to let him have a well deserved rest

As usually: Check out Warboss Kurgan who maintains a list of all previous rumour engines (included solved ones) here - https://warbosskurgan.blogspot.com/p/rumour-engines.html

And with that out of the way:

7 Jan 2025
Spoiler:


In an attempt to get clearer pictures, we somehow managed to turn this week’s reveal into – of all things – a mirror.See, it works.
But in all seriousness, that’s a frightful visage to be sure – one that we’re sure rests upon an equally delightful miniature.


14 Jan 2025
Spoiler:


We like to have a laugh here in the Warhammer Community transgression cube – though not too much in case the flensing barbs puncture a lung – but sometimes there comes an image that’s simply too obvious for jocularity.


21 Jan 2025
Spoiler:


The word ‘trident’ comes from the ancient Greek words ‘trid’ and ‘ent’. No one knows what they mean, but it’s probably something to do with the handle. Either way, the owner of this fierce implement must be an absolute hit at barbecues. Who grills with an ‘ent’ like this?


28 Jan 2025
Spoiler:


A book is a window to another world, or so they say. The trouble is, when it comes to Warhammer, other worlds are real and they inevitably contain a multitude of inconceivable evil, which is why you gotta wear gloves and keep them firmly closed. Whose first novel is this?


04 Feb 2025
Spoiler:


The Rumour Engine acolytes are a crafty lot, and after we stopped them bothering the Bugman's kitchen for more than their mandated Citadel Colour gruel,* they started sending suggestive food-themed images instead. We’ve shut that right down – it’s another month of chewing paint brushes for them – but those pictures aren’t going to waste. Just check out this tong-looking thing. Why yes, our salad tongs do have striped power cables. How else do you make them clack together to ensure they work?


11 Feb 2025
Spoiler:


We have been advised that implying our acolytes are fed paint is against a breathtaking number of regulations, so to make sure the powers that be understand that we definitely do not under any circumstances do that, we present some actual real food. Well not actual food, it’s a plastic miniature, but you know what we mean. Yes, it’s currently attached to some kind of animal (probably), but it could conceivably become food one day – just ask the ogors.


18 Feb 2025

Spoiler:


Mmm, soup. There’s nothing better to warm you up on a blustery winter’s day, and enterprising cooks from across the worlds of Warhammer have come up with all kinds of ingenious recipes. Just look at this masterpiece – it even comes in its own bowl. Sure, it’s not exactly what our mums would call brain food, but beggars can’t be choosers, and lord knows the poor misshapen souls maintaining the Rumour Engine need a little more than hopes and dreams in their diet.


25 Feb 2025

Spoiler:


If you’ve ever seen those terrifying machines that shred the inside of a coconut, you’ll know exactly what this is – another tool in the arsenal of Warhammer’s premier culinarians. Maybe if we give the basement acolytes some coconut, they’ll stop bothering us for ‘real food’...


04 Mar 2025

Spoiler:


This month’s theme for the Rumour Engine is ‘abstract shapes’, because clearly we haven’t been confusing enough already. Comprehension is overrated, embrace confusion! What are you doing? That’s not abstract at all… Well OK, that one is clearly either smoke or fire, but it could be some weird kind of fungus? Maybe?


11 Mar 2025

Spoiler:


After last week’s easy win, you’re probably expecting today’s Rumour Engine to be a real brain-scratcher, and you’d be right. There’s no possible way you can guess what this is. In fact, we’re willing to stake all of our Rumour Engineers’ jobs on stumping you this week.


18 Mar 2025

Spoiler:


When you get splashed with something in Warhammer, the chances of it being benign really aren’t high. If you’re in the Mortal Realms, it could be some cool and refreshing Aqua Ghyranis, at which point it’s like being showered in money. But if you’re in the 41st Millennium, it’s almost certainly either blood, ichor or acid. Bad luck. Anyway, here’s a splash of some sort. Sure, it could just be water, but where’s the fun in that?


25 Mar 2025

Spoiler:


So far this month we’ve covered the classical elements of water, fire, and… uh… rope, but this week’s image is a real doozy. Is it a single triangular construction, or are we looking down a kaleidoscope again? A question we ask ourselves daily. Oh, don’t be boring and just say it’s a drill, come up with something wild! It’s a new kind of daemon! A C’tan Shard of the Quantum Diggerlord! Three Squat Prospectors huddled very close together!


01 Apr 2025

Spoiler:


We had so many pictures of craftily dragon-shaped weapons and lamellar armour to tease out over the next few months, and then those devious goblins over in the Intentional Reveals Department went and plastered Grand Cathay all over the AdeptiCon preview show! How dare they! We’ll show them. What’s something they won’t be showing off for a while?


08 Apr 2025

Spoiler:


It might be the grim darkness of the far future, a nightmarish existence wherein an incalculably oppressive society has forgotten more about technology than you will ever know, but they still need to be able to control things. Here, we humbly submit, is how. Or could it be something from Age of Sigmar? Impossible to tell.


15 Apr 2025

Spoiler:


You think you’ve come up with a fresh new idea to tease – a big metal halo with a skull in it – and then it turns out that Space Marines have been doing it for years. So how do you reinvent the Warhammer equivalent of the wheel? An extra eye-hole in the forehead! Maybe that’s a clue, or maybe it’s how the poor owner died in the first place. Is it for candles?


22 Apr 2025

Spoiler:


Sometimes something gets dropped out of the Rumour Engine that could be literally anything. We weren’t even sure that this one was something Warhammer-y, but then we noticed it had a helpful skull in the middle so you know where you stand. This could be a dinner plate for all we know, it’d still have a skull. Perhaps we nailed it last week and it really is reinventing the wheel. Bit bumpy though…


29 Apr 2025

Spoiler:


Living in a grim dark future full of violence and death is no excuse for ignoring safe road-crossing conduct, so let us take a moment to say how excited we are that the 41st Millennium is finally getting its first set of traffic lights in plastic. No, we didn’t check if there were any already before making this statement, stop worrying and look at these. It looks like we even have room for some filter lights so traffic can be directed in an efficient and orderly fashion – bravo!


06 May 2025

Spoiler:


There’s something afoot in this week’s rumour engine… that’s it. That’s the joke. Whose hoof is this? Anyone who makes a quip about a Primaris Lieutenant will be servitorised.


13 May 2025

Spoiler:


Have you ever stopped to think that all of this is made up? That the Rumour Engine is not actually real, so much a narrative device trotted out once a week to bookend a teaser picture? See? No matter what we say… there it is, a picture. We don’t know what it is. Is it real? It looks quite antenna-y, whatever it is.


20 May 2025

Spoiler:


After a week of soul-searching and introspection, we’ve decided that the Rumour Engine doesn’t need to be real, so long as people like it. Where else will you get vague snippets of a checks notes ‘long stick-looking thing that might also be a tongue’. Who writes these?


27 May 2025

Spoiler:


Ah, the shimmering void beyond our holding pen has briefly dissipated for another week, so it must be time to show off another image before we are banished back into whatever realm they keep James Workshop in when it isn’t Christmas. We’re joking, of course – he’s the boss, and his pocket of oblivion has an en-suite bathroom while ours is more like… well, whatever this electrode-banded torture device is.


03 Jun 2025

Spoiler:


Are you hungry? We are, and that fact might have something to do with this decidedly meaty-looking image we’ve just pried from the Rumour Engine’s output nozzle. Now, it could also be a rock, but it’s been a week since they tossed something into the WarCom Penance Oubliette and at this point we’d honestly eat anything. Mmmm. Are those tasty rib bones or just claws? Is it even organic? Does it matter?


10 Jun 2025

Spoiler:


Usually when we pull something out of the Rumour Engine, we have a vague idea what we’re looking at and riff on that. Today? No idea, absolutely none. If we knew what the word is for blowing a raspberry while shrugging, we’d write that here. Do you have better eyes than us? There… might be a rivet there, maybe.


17 Jun 2025

Spoiler:


Ah, finally! A Rumour Engine image we know! That’s the business end of the big stick with which we whack this damn machine when it spits out fresh nonsense. Which, as you know, is all the time. Does this mean the Rumour Engine is seeking revenge?


24 Jun 2025

Spoiler:


Another slamdunk of a Rumour Engine picture. That’s clearly the scabbard for a knife. Look at that reinforced metal tip – that’s craftsmanship right there. Obviously made by someone who cares. Now we just need to figure out which faction cares about their weapons. Ah, well, that’s quite a lot of factions isn’t it? Nevertheless, there must be SOME clue who it belongs to.


01 Jul 2025

Spoiler:


The thing about a good pouch is that you can never be quite sure if it’s from Warhammer 40,000 or Warhammer Age of Sigmar, or neither. This one has sharp angles and stuff that makes it look very cool and futuristic… but maybe the Seraphon have simply moved their love of trapezoids from architecture to fashion design. What do you think it is? We’re pretty sure that dangly thing is a clue, but guessing right would render these posts moot...


08 Jul 2025

Spoiler:


Continuing our trend of ‘things that you can put other things in’ – look, we’re trying, OK – we have a vitreographical Rumour Engine image to peer at today. Whoever it is, they really like ampules – so either it’s the Mortal Realms’ latest snake oil salesman or a perfectly average Necromundan coming home from the firewater hole. That zig-zag design on one of the bottles is probably a clue, right? Who is it who likes triangles again?


15 Jul 2025

Spoiler:


Have you ever sat there wondering how you’re going to carry all your spiky metal balls and your collection of skulls about town when you’ve only two hands? If only there were a portability solution suited to both, which also enhances that avant-garde blood-cult chic that’s so in season this summer. Ladies and gentleman: chains. What absolute style icon is wearing these, you ask? Haven’t the faintest idea, we’re hired to write about war and treachery and wizard fights, not high fashion.


22 Jul 2025

Spoiler:


What do you mean there are five weekends this month? We had this big July finale planned out and… never mind, let’s just look at some more skulls to cheer ourselves up. Just the one skull, but never mind that – whoever strapped it onto their belt did a bang-up job keeping everything tidy, including the extremely specific-looking blade hanging there.


29 Jul 2025

Spoiler:


There is but one conclusion to come to when looking at today’s Rumour Engine image: novelty back scratchers have finally arrived in the Mortal Realms. And not a moment too soon, with all that battling going on at the moment. How else are you going to keep comfortable under your armour? Is this a back scratcher, or is it something else?


05 Aug 2025
Spoiler:



Some Rumour Engines are impossible to guess, tiny, close-up images of who knows what. Some are easier, like this one, which is obviously some sort of advanced Necron artefact. What manner of Cryptek wields this cybernetic staff?


12 Aug 2025
Spoiler:


After last week’s clearly Cryptek staff, we’ve got another obviously dynastic drop from the grim darkness of the far future. This is presumably the first Phaeron with a real fur tail – who says Necron fashion has been stagnant since the fall? Case closed on this one, no need to guess what it is.


19 Aug 2025
Spoiler:


These Necron images are getting more and more obvious, from the segmented living metal of the abdomen to the strange runes etched onto the necrodermis. Yep, this is clearly a new type of Canoptek construct. Unless it’s a new C’tan Shard, of course. What do you reckon, oh ye phaerons?


26 Aug 2025
Spoiler:


A mysterious robed entity holding some kind of bladed farming implement? At least we know it’s definitely not the new Nightbringer.


02 Sep 2025
Spoiler:


Sometimes you just have to call a spear a spear. This is a spear. But whose spear is it? Unusually, we actually know what this one is. No clue.


09 Sep 2025
Spoiler:


Continuing on this month’s theme of ‘Rumour Engine images that are simply too obvious that we can’t pretend they’re something else’, here’s a magic wand. Whose wand is it anyway?


16 Sep 2025
Spoiler:


Another obvious one from ‘duh-DOY’ month on the Rumour Engine. Someone’s dropped their space-phone and hasn’t yet had time to visit one of those sanctioned Adeptus Mechanicus repair kiosks.There’s spilled machine unguent everywhere. Should have bought a space-case.


23 Sep 2025
Spoiler:


This is the most blatant one yet. We’re not even going to insult your intelligence with a riff. Whose nose is this?


30 Sep 2025
Spoiler:


The Rumour Engine has been offering obvious clues all September. Each week’s image has been easier to guess than the last, insulting both your intelligence and our poor, abused intern. So imagine our surprise as it kicks out what might be its most obscure and hard-to-get image in more than six consecutive millennia of operation. Literally what even is this?


07 Oct 2025
Spoiler:


We sometimes worry that the Rumour Engine shows a little too much, and you might actually be able to guess what the Thing of the Week is. Seriously, some of you get really close. To make sure none of that happens this week, we’re giving you perhaps the least interesting tidbit we’ve ever shown. Can you guess what it is? Here’s a hint: it’s not a plastic Thunderhawk Gunship.


14 Oct 2025
Spoiler:


We’re trying something new this week – to grab your attention more with our incredible Rumour Engine images, we’re showing off something that literally grabs things. What does it grab? Who is the operator? What are their hopes and dreams? Do servitors dream of… Never mind,


21 Oct 2025


Rats… we already made a joke about grabbing things last week, and now we’re looking at a hand? We’re sure there’s an idiom in there about waiting for buses. Either way, check it out – a hand, holding something. It’s got a skull on it, but in the grim darkness of the far future the toothpaste probably has skulls on it too, so that’s not a lot to go on.

This message was edited 24 times. Last update was at 2025/10/21 13:57:32

My Element Games referal code: SVE5335 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/07 13:47:07
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in gb
[DCM]
Chief Deputy Sub Assistant Trainee Squig Handling Intern






It’s a very classic, early WHFB Chaos shield design, that one.

I’m wondering if it might be an exclusive model. Something a bit fancier for us?
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?

Hey look! It’s my 2025 Hobby Log/Blog/Project/Whatevs 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/07 13:57:15
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Makes me think of a slightly better made scareshield.
   
[Post New] 2025/01/07 14:25:08
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in us
Sadistic Inquisitorial Excruciator






first thought was kreulboyz, but their shields with tongues are slightly different. chaos seems likely, or at least, something fantasy/aos
she/her 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/07 14:28:22
    Subject: Re:Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in de
Liche Priest Hierophant






Warcry doesn't have a Not!Slaanesh warband yet, does it? Might be that.
Nehekhara lives! Sort of!
Why is the rum always gone? 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/07 14:28:34
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in de
Morphing Obliterator






Feels beltbuckle-ly to me, maybe Darkoath.
Playing mostly Necromunda and Battletech, Malifaux is awesome too! 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/07 15:21:47
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in de
Dakka Veteran






Must be Slaanesh because the text uses the words
- frightful visage
- mirror
- delightful

All very much Slaanesh words from some miniatures or spells or whatever.
   
[Post New] 2025/01/07 16:15:19
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





I think it’s a generic banner topper. What you’d use when you don’t want one of the chaos god icons
   
[Post New] 2025/01/07 17:40:22
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in us
Stern Iron Priest with Thrall Bodyguard






 Astmeister wrote:
Must be Slaanesh because the text uses the words
- frightful visage
- mirror
- delightful

All very much Slaanesh words from some miniatures or spells or whatever.


The face even looks like the deamonette face of the endless spell "dreadfull visage"
   
[Post New] 2025/01/07 18:02:36
    Subject: Re:Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Seems more generic than any specific chaos god

I’m still betting on a banner icon
[Thumb - IMG_5541.png]

[Thumb - IMG_5543.jpeg]

   
[Post New] 2025/01/07 18:19:50
    Subject: Re:Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in us
Inquisitorial Scourge of Heretics






Tapping the Glass at the Herpetarium

That seems like a safe bet.
 BorderCountess wrote:
Just because you're doing something right doesn't necessarily mean you know what you're doing...


"Vulkan: There will be no Rad or Phosphex in my legion. We shall fight wars humanely. Some things should be left in the dark age."
"Ferrus: Oh cool, when are you going to stop burning people to death?"
"Vulkan: I do not understand the question."

– A conversation between the X and XVIII Primarchs

 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/08 11:03:52
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in nl
Raging-on-the-Inside Blood Angel Sergeant




netherlands

Its a lizardman shield
full compagny of bloodangels, 5000 pnt of epic bloodangels
5000 pnt imperial guard
5000 pnt orks
2500 pnt grey knights
5000 pnt gsc
5000 pnts Chaos legionars
4000 pnt tyranids
4000 pnt Tau
 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 12:18:26
    Subject: Re:Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in de
Boosting Ultramarine Biker




Hamburg

14 Jan 2025



We like to have a laugh here in the Warhammer Community transgression cube – though not too much in case the flensing barbs puncture a lung – but sometimes there comes an image that’s simply too obvious for jocularity.
My Element Games referal code: SVE5335 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 12:23:13
    Subject: Re:Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in au
Fixture of Dakka





Melbourne

Something Emperor's Children related judging by the caption, although plenty of armies do use wing ornamentation for things.
My Blogs -
Hobby Blog
Terrain 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 12:41:14
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
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Made in si
Foxy Wildborne







"transgression cube" sounds like something loyalists would have
The old meta is dead and the new meta struggles to be born. Now is the time of munchkins. 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 12:44:36
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
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Made in us
The Marine Standing Behind Marneus Calgar





Upstate, New York

Ravenwing?

It looks artificial.
Ultramarines, 3rd Co. and friends, 16k+ 4k 4k Points
Nevelon's Workbench: Ultramarines, Saim-Hann and other assorted oddities
Competition Index
 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 12:46:50
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Don’t overthink the text of a rumor engine article

The wing matches the design of a cyber cherub
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 12:51:23
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in us
The Marine Standing Behind Marneus Calgar





Upstate, New York

 GaroRobe wrote:
Don’t overthink the text of a rumor engine article

The wing matches the design of a cyber cherub


For some reason I thought the cherubs were different, but you are right. Pretty similar.
Spoiler:


Ultramarines, 3rd Co. and friends, 16k+ 4k 4k Points
Nevelon's Workbench: Ultramarines, Saim-Hann and other assorted oddities
Competition Index
 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 13:00:24
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in au
Fixture of Dakka





Melbourne

 lord_blackfang wrote:
"transgression cube" sounds like something loyalists would have
Oh I'm sure the EC would have a transgression cube. Probably a buff coloured box they forced to sit in with no stimuli of any sort that drives them mad through lack of sensation. Perfectly boring, perfectly dull. The most excruciating of tortures you could inflict upon a follower of Slaanesh, exquisite in it's mind-numbingness.
My Blogs -
Hobby Blog
Terrain 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 13:13:51
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
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Made in gb
[DCM]
Chief Deputy Sub Assistant Trainee Squig Handling Intern






Playing daytime TV.

The TV carefully crafted to be so insipid and mind numbing, those wanting to bunk off work or school are reminded there’s no point, as daytime TV isn’t worth it.

Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?

Hey look! It’s my 2025 Hobby Log/Blog/Project/Whatevs 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 13:56:34
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in us
Sadistic Inquisitorial Excruciator






it looks really stiff, with no kind of bend, but that might be the angle. Ravenwing would be a compelling guess if DA hadn't already gotten their refresh for the edition

certainly could be a cherub. doubt it'd be EC. doubt it's for AOS (too artificial)
she/her 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 14:05:45
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
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Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

Stormcast have artificial wings, but its not elaborate enough on the feathers for them
A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 14:12:22
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
it looks really stiff, with no kind of bend, but that might be the angle. Ravenwing would be a compelling guess if DA hadn't already gotten their refresh for the edition

certainly could be a cherub. doubt it'd be EC. doubt it's for AOS (too artificial)


Could easily be a statue for something. Scenic basing is my guess.
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 14:43:58
    Subject: Re:Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka





Its Storm Eagle!

Casual gaming, mostly solo-coop these days.

 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 14:50:09
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
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Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Biloxi, MS USA

It's clearly a Cherub Squig
You know you're really doing something when you can make strangers hate you over the Internet. - Mauleed
Just remember folks. Panic. Panic all the time. It's the only way to survive, other than just being mindful, of course-but geez, that's so friggin' boring. - Aegis Grimm
Hallowed is the All Pie
The Before Times: A Place That Celebrates The World That Was 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 14:55:39
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
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Made in gb
[DCM]
Chief Deputy Sub Assistant Trainee Squig Handling Intern






Doesn’t strike me as Slaaneshi Fancy to be honest.

It’s almost certainly 40K though, and possibly scenery or centrepiece.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?

Hey look! It’s my 2025 Hobby Log/Blog/Project/Whatevs 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 15:23:51
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in gb
2nd Lieutenant





Swooping hawks?
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 15:25:27
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in gb
[DCM]
Chief Deputy Sub Assistant Trainee Squig Handling Intern






We’ve seen them already at the last reveal show.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?

Hey look! It’s my 2025 Hobby Log/Blog/Project/Whatevs 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 18:47:25
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in gb
Master Engineer with a Brace of Pistols





Northumberland

I'm going to say it's a mad hat for a new High Elf model for Old World.

One and a half feet in the hobby


My Painting Log of various minis:
# Olthannon's Oscillating Orchard of Opportunity #

 
   
[Post New] 2025/01/14 20:21:48
    Subject: Rumour Engine 2025
[Up]
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






Richmond, VA

 Olthannon wrote:
I'm going to say it's a mad hat for a new High Elf model for Old World.



That's a decent guess! I could see that. Or a Ravenwing thingie.
   
 
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