Those of us in the UK woke up to a venerable mountain of reveals from Games Workshop at the NOVA Open last night! In an effort to keep producing blog content, here’s my top picks of the reveals!
Now one thing this post won’t be, is a blow by blow list of everything that got shown off, Warhammer Community has already done a stunning job of displaying all the releases on a post on their blog. Instead this will be me selecting a handful of items that caught my eye as interesting for one reason or another.
New Age of Darkness Horus Heresy Box
When Games Workshop announced an armour mark update for Horus Heresy, I was hoping against hopes that it would be MkII armour so that I could finally add some rank and file to my Death Guard force. Alas it was not to be and instead we have received a reworked and slightly upscaled MkIII “Iron” armour. This update brings them inline with the scale of the MkVI “Corvus” armour plus makes them compatible with the plastic special and heavy weapons packs (huge bonus!). The updated armour is being accompanied by a Deredeo Dreadnought, which looks ace and contains a load of weapon options and missile launchers.
Release wise it looks like they’re initially going to drop as a box of thirty MkIII armoured marines, one Deredeo and a Land Raider Proteus. As a throw away line the box also includes one of the special weapon sprues. I’m actually really impressed with the box as it doesn’t have any random characters and works as an expansion box to many any marine forces – in fact if you’ve not got a Land Raider Proteus or Deredeo it may even be worth it just for those!
This is one of two items from the reveals that I’m very tempted to pick up, as it was always my intention to have my heavy weapon Death Guard in MkIII armour – I’d even bought the resin and plastic components to do it!
Fulgrim Transfigured
Sticking with the 30th millennium, we have the absolutely stunning Fulgrim Transfigured miniature which depicts the Primarch Fulgrim in all his Daemonic glory! It’s a stunning model but raises more questions than answers. This is model is being released under the Horus Heresy banner, which is suggestive he’s not going to be usable in Warhammer 40k – most people were expecting him to appear in the same way as Angron did with a Daemonic visage that could work in both. This may well be because we’re getting a different Fulgrim in plastic for 40k. Within the article, is miniature is being marked as “a new watermark for awe-inspiring resin miniatures” – that’s right folks, as with Horus Ascended this is a resin model, but unlike Horus which is basically a brick of resin, this miniature is slender with massive wings and a fragile looking spear – yay? Sarcasm aside, this looks like it could be a horrifically awkward miniature to transport or store.
Vampire BB Team
Despite not playing the game, I absolutely love the Blood Bowl teams that have been being released since the game was re-released. They all have a wonderful balance of nostalgia mixed with light-hearted silliness and the new Vampire Team are no exception. You’ve a load of Hammer Horror style vampires with human thralls and a healthy dosage of bats! I can see these miniatures cropping up in dioramas and armies as time goes on.
Underworlds Deathgorge
This year, Underworlds has become one game my local hobby group have added into the mix of things we’re starting to play more regularly. It’s a great little game that plays quickly and allows the slower painters in the group to get a warband painted without spending months working on it. Underworlds boxes do seem to appear unbelievably quickly though and this reveal has another one being added in the form of the ice themed Underworlds Deathgorge for the next season. This time it contains Idoneth (including punching squid) and Slaneeshii warbands. Both look stunning and it’s one release that is very tempting to pick up – certainly now is the time to pick up past warbands as some will be going out of stock soon.
The Other Stuff
I could happily waffle on about the other reveals – the new Gorgers are great, the Trogg is amazing and would be great to paint up and the marines fill a gap (plus the new scouts are a great update), however there’s a limit if I’m honest!
As reveals go, this was massive and I suspect it’s the last big reveal we’ll get before something at Christmas. I do however find myself a little frustrated that this feels larger than the reveals we got for Warhammer Fest in May, plus for people in the UK not only is it at a crazy time (2am), but it’s the middle of the working week. This seems to be becoming a habit – massive US reveals at Adepticon and NOVA and a weaker one at the UK Fest event in May.
Timezones are always going to be an issue, a 10am GMT reveal is 6am EST – but that’s still more respectable than 2am, plus UK reveals are nearly always at a weekend and US ones aren’t. That’s not to say that the US shouldn’t have reveals – far from it, for me I think that some improvement on the timings is needed and the offering at Fest needs to be significantly better. Fest is meant to be GW’s event of the year but pales in comparison to what is given to other events.
Frustrations aside, there appears to be an amazing number of upcoming releases coming along and certainly a couple that if funds and time allows I’ll be picking up.
