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-Will be available from the Horus Heresy Weekender
-Rites of Wars for Blood Angels, Dark Angels, White Scars and Shattered Legions. Possible new Rites for certain legions
-Tylos Rubio is being worked on right now by Israel
-No characters/units for new legions
-There will be a Meduson character that can be used as a HQ for all Shattered Legion armies. As he is so close with the Raven Guard and Salamanders he can be used in different army lists with the alternative Rites of War
-Certain equipment will be mentioned for each legion such as multi plasma arrangements for the Dark Angels and a special Glaive hand to hand weapon for
the White Scars.
-The Keshig will be upcoming for White Scars as well as a Bike squad (but not this book).
-A new bike has been finished by Blake.
-Mastodon and Stormbird will appear
Further info we have also found out:
-Darren Parwood is working on a new knight (A Heavy variant - Castellan like).
-A new air field display board is being worked on / planned which will feature the new Stormbird and Thunderhawk Landing pad tiles, which is not being released until the Stormbird is finished (which is apparently so big it might go through the tile!!).
Stormbird is currently in printing production. Possible first appearance at Weekender
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Crusade Imperialis Red Book
This will contain all the army lists from Solar Auxilia, Militia and Warp Cults as well as Knight Households. Simply put - everything that does not already have a Red Book available. No planned changes, may have a few rules tweaks but probably not any points value changes. The new Knight chassis' like the Warden will be included as well as the up-to-date wargear like the Gatling cannon.
Legion Crusade Red Book
This is going to be a straight re-print with the latest units like the Leviathan, Xiphon, Damocles Command Rhino etc added. No points values changes as FW are happy with the points values but some units may have added rules or abilities to reflect their higher points cost.
Istvaan Campaign Red Book
This book will see the biggest changes. Several Legion-elite units are having rules tweaks but not points value changes, as they are under-performing compared to newer units. Units like Phoenix Guard and Justearin are top of the list for changes. The original four Legions from Betrayal are also having some of their Legiones Astartes rules tweaked but not massively changed. Emperors Children for example are going to have more advantages if they charge in assault whilst Sons of Horus are having Merciless Fighters changed. The SoH rule has gone through a lot of changes of which one possible change could be bonuses with certain weapons like pistols and other weapons not mentioned, at short range. I didn't get details for other changes.
Book 6
No collectors edition coming. Contains lots of Rites of War of which loads in other threads has been written. One detail on the White Scars RoW is that it will focus on bikes and other quick units. The other WS RoW is shared with the Shattered Legions and represents some of the tactics of the WS legionaries thrown out by Jaghatai for supporting Horus - these tactics are then picked up by "dodgy" Shattered Legion forces.
Specialist Games
Forge World is effectively being divided into three parts all overseen by Tony Cottarel in an Emperor Palpatine-esq way (in my mind at least). One section is led by Alan Bligh and will continue producing all the normal 40k, 30k and Age of Sigmar that we are used to. Second section is led by Andy Hoare and is focusing on the traditional specialist games that we would recognise from the past like Necromunda, Blood Bowl etc. The final section is going to focus on Lord of the Rings. Each section includes the manager and three developers.
In terms of models, there will be a core focus in plastic in the starting box sets that will be designed by the SG department and then manufactured by the main Studio. Blood Bowl is currently in development but mentions were made about Adeptus Titanicus coming back to its roots of a Titan vs Titan game set in the heresy and additional Necormunda gangs made in resin. All of this is still in very early days of development and chat. The new department opens officially on the 18th January.
One final point is that the main GW Studio is not going to develop the Horus Heresy / Age of Darkness as that it staying within FW. This may include further plastics however as FW may be branching into plastic manufacture in the future as mentioned with the traditional specialist games above.
Imperial Armour 16
This is Red Scorpions with Ad. Mech allies fighting Tau on an abandoned Forge World. The Red Scorpions will have lots of Legion equipment like Leviathans and Kharbydis Assault Claws with 40k rules while the Ad. Mech will have a lot of the 30k vehicles ported to 40k without Volkite or Battle-Automata. Mention was made of possible resin Skitarii upgrades.
New models
Corax looks much better painted and close up than he does in the pictures as do the new Raven Guard assault troops. The Ordinatus has been modelled with a volcano cannon and to my mind, looks better for it. The Warlord is getting new weapons - a plasma weapon and a siege claw with an inbuilt Vulcan Mega-bolter in the same way as the Contemptor CC weapons. Head hunters appear to be upgrades as opposed to new kit but it does confirm they only have combi-bolters. The Thousand Sons upgrades look great painted and the metallic FW scheme looks awesome "in the flesh". Can't wait to see this scheme on vehicles.
Book 7
This is confirmed for later publication this year. It has been confirmed as Prospero so get your flea powder ready for the all the VIth Legion froth that is going to emerge. Personally, I want to see Sisters of Silence and Custodes models.
Horus Heresy Masterclass Book
I almost feel dirty looking at this book as it is basically pornography for gamers. Does not contain full legion painting guides as we once thought but it does have the details for several key units and for Imperial Fist players, a good guide for painting yellow. It also contains guides for the two big terrain builds on the display boards like Calth and that looks helpful. Haven't had a proper look through it yet, but I'll squeeze a good look in later.
Retail
Queues were normal but weren't that bad. The HH Masterclass and the release of Corax and the RG assault troops was a bonus. The big surprise was that a lot of the lizardman boxes, old devastator and assault troops as well as some codexes were being sold at half price prior to being repackaged. This was quite popular and perhaps shows a new path for GW and I thought a lot of people were making impulse buys based on this. T-shirts and the normal was available and it was good to see some older designs being shown.
Gaming
Quite a lot of people were gaming and at least half were heresy games which was interesting. They were also running participation games of Warhammer Quest (love that game) as well as the Scrap Demon. Based on what they had written about the event, I was expecting more older games.
Digital Games
In a separate area were the digital games. I only spent a bit of time in here chatting about the new Talisman Horus Heresy. This looks quite interesting and is more of a wargame than Talisman re-done.
Oldhammer
Aly Morrison was at the event with loads of old artwork and copies of WD from the '70's. There was also a lot of older models like metal terminators from the original boxed set and metal Tyranids. Brought back lots of memories.
Exhibition area
The exhibition hall is always interesting and I spent loads of time going around the HH temporary exhibition. Some of the models were gorgeous. The team who put the exhibits together were there to chat to as well which was an eye-opener and interesting.
Final thoughts
It was a free event. I think this needs to be borne in mind. Despite the fact that the HH Weekender is just over a month away, there was quite a lot of information to be had. Makes you wonder what they have lined up for the Weekender. The rest of the event was very quiet. I arrived at 9.45 expecting the queue to be around the carpark but I went straight into the main foyer and lined up there. Lining up to purchase new FW releases was less than 30 minutes and it was easy to talk to the staff. Overall, I enjoyed it as it was more laid back and relaxed than a normal Open Day.
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No big reveal either (unless it was blood bowl)
The shopping bit had a bunch of older kits and books for half price.
Corax looks lovely in person, paint job seems a bit off with pure black eyes, just looks unfinished.
Dark furies are ace in person, a friend bought them and gave me the bodies/legs for my blood angels.
Blood bowl minis look really nice.
Russ is the next primarch, with magnus being next, both this year. Inferno is aimed to be out late this year.
Signus book might not be book 8, as book 8 may be calth part 2. (Sad face)
On the game side, eisenhorn is based directly on the first book but they've opted to streamline it in places and instead use data cards you can read to cover them (autopsy scene was specifically mentioned)
There was apparently some kind of special game related reveal but I never saw anything for it.
Warhammer total war looks pretty good although they didn't show any actual combat.
