Imperial Knight of House Teuthida

After going halves on an Imperial Knights: Renegade boxset with Dan from Forged at a Painting Desk, I found myself owning an Imperial Knight. The promise of a game in Nottingham gave me the deadline I needed to get the thing finished and painted.

I was coming from a place of ignorance. Sure, I knew the basic background behind the Knight Houses – but I knew nothing about my Knight. I had no idea what House, or what purpose the Knight might fill, or how I would tie it in with my Space Wolves. I hadn’t anticipated touching the thing for a little while, hoping to let it gestate in the depths of my subconscious for a while.

It was important that it fit with my Space Wolves aesthetically, but I wanted to do something other than just paint it Space Wolf Grey. I also remembered I’d seen that the Freeblade Transfer sheet had squid/kraken things on it and maybe I’d could use those. After all, Fenris is famous for something else other than the Wolves, Ice, and Space Marines - Kraken! I didn’t want a Freeblade, as I wanted the later possibility - should I ever somehow find the time - to field an entire force of Knights, resplendent in their house colours.

Things flowed naturally from there. Sea-green seemed like a sufficiently different colour to my Wolves. Bronze and red would mean they’d share trim colours, tying the two forces together. Orange would look great too, as orange is the perfect colour to go alongside sea-green or teal. The plan was to weather it heavily, make it really rusty. I had this image of it being covered in sea-spray on its home planet, fighting horrible sea monsters to keep the populace safe (and most importantly, productive!)

Disaster struck when I attempted to order that transfer sheet though – it had long since sold out. Further, reading through the Imperial Knight codex, I realised I would need a House Coat of Arms. I was up for the challenge of making my own (I’m by no means an artist!). I’d read on From The Warp about custom decals and it didn’t seem too difficult. Following a quick search for free-to-use images, and time in Inkscape to make up my heraldry, it was done. I wanted to do something more than just abstract shapes (already prominent in my Space Wolves force) for the personal heraldry of the Knight. To complement the Nordic theme Space Wolves use, I used a Celtic knot, with an idea of using a different knot design for each Knight. One last touch was to put a wolf’s head on the pennant, to symbolise the co-operation between this Knight and my Chapter of choice.

The Crest of House Teuthida - I tried to match the style of the GW designs as closely as I could

Things didn’t go quite to plan! I found that Dullcoat wasn’t good enough for sealing the ink onto the paper and the transfers were not only terribly flimsy, but the ink ran too. I was running out of time by this point, but thankfully the father-in-law-to-be offered a can of Halfords car lacquer. I wasn’t entirely convinced, but I was desperate. Turns out, it was perfect. With the magic bottles that are Micro-Set and Micro-Sol (and a little matte varnish to dull the gloss after) I’d finally got the Knight looking how I wanted.

I couldn’t bring myself to rust it. The copper trim was a perfect complement to the sea-green already. So, it’s the only Imperial model I own that hasn’t been weathered.

I still can't decide on a name for him, but given how many times he came back 'from the dead' in his debut, I'm thinking 'Undying' or something similar will be part of it!

I think I could have done a better job breaking up the metalwork, but seeing as I'm the one who will see this side most games, I can live with it!

The Knight didn’t fair too well in its first outing. I imagine this matches most people’s experience of taking out a model they’re proud of for a spin! It was an epic battle though, facing off against serious Tau opposition (including a Supremacy suit!). The Imperials couldn’t quite carry the day, but House Teuthida fought valiantly, throwing Knight after Knight into the fray… (we were playing Apocalypse, so I took full advantage of the rule allowing me to spend victory points to resurrect a dead unit!)

I’m looking forward to taking it to battle again – particularly against the daemon possessed Knight Dan has been working on for a while now!

Thoughts on Games Workshop's Changing Relationship with Its Community

Before these halcyon days of the internet - the age of social media, hashtags, and dank memes - there was a time when companies couldn’t just go viral to market their product. You needed to advertise, whether on TV or in a magazine or other media. The only direct engagement you’d have with your customers was through a store front. The only bit Games Workshop did. GW has always had a funny relationship with the concept of marketing.

Word of mouth has always been the driving philosophy for Games Workshop’s promotion. They had exciting store windows throughout the UK, filled with cool looking painted models, that could attract the eye of almost any little boy looking through at the displays. They also had White Dwarf – their own bespoke magazine! During those pre-internet years, it was the only real way for most people to get Games Workshop news – and it had cool articles too! Though even then you could argue it was just a catalogue; but it was all we had!

Those were the days...

Then the internet rolled up, in its fancy sports car with animated gifs, auto-playing midis, and, critically, web-forums. Sure, chat-rooms were a thing, but web-communities picked up when the forum came along. And Games Workshop was uncharacteristic in being quick off the mark to get their own! Unfortunately, these web-forums didn’t last all that long. They were not a pleasant place. After this though they doggedly continued to put their website to good use, putting up many things up for free – painting guides, scenarios, rules.

Without much warning, things changed…

In typical fashion Games Workshop realised that it wasn’t making enough money from all this free stuff. If people wanted to look at these things for free so much, they’d pay for them, right? So, bit by bit, the website changed, they deleted all the old content, and replaced it all with epub format painting guides and dataslates (if you had an iPad you could have them in a less awful interactive format). Around this time the company itself became more anonymous, their web-forum was long gone, and they stopped stating who designed each model (a practice that sadly continues to this day!)

The advent of social media should have been a turning point, forcing GW into the 21^st Century. They created Twitter and Facebook accounts for all their major arms (GW proper, Forge World & Black Library), and they were popular! And then they killed them out of the blue, without fanfare, exhausted with the negativity posted by their own community. Games Workshop had finished its transformation into an anonymous and unapproachable fortress.

The Imposing Castle Games Workshop

It was hard to blame them from giving up the hobby community they’d spent so long promoting and building. The Warhammer community has always been caustic. Criticism of Games Workshop is the norm, and praise, was rare. And ‘criticism’ was often a polite euphemism for pure abuse. I don’t think they knew how to counter and resolve the issue.  I’m not sure drawing up the bridge and filling the moat with lava was the best response.

Then Duncan Rhodes came.

The Lord of Paint Thinning and being Neat As You Can himself.

There had been a Games Workshop YouTube channel for some time, although the majority of the content had been somewhat pointless reveal videos. Whilst often well done, they were meant to be the launching points for release hype and get people excited about what models might be coming up that week. Of course, leaks would usually have occurred weeks, if not months, in advance. It would take a long while for GW to best realise a strategy for dealing with leaks.

The ‘How to Paint’ videos were an unexpected masterstroke though. They’re among the best guides on the internet for beginner miniature painters. More than that though, they’ve given Games Workshop a face.

Finally, GW had found an avenue to engage with its community. It was a small step, but a vital one. With Duncan Rhodes, they had an approachable and likable figurehead to build upon. It isn’t perfect – they disable the comments on their YouTube videos, so it still feels like you are dealing with a wall. Duncan has even spawned his own memes – mostly about thinning paints.

Then, over the last year, something weird happened – Games Workshop, perhaps buoyed from its success with its painting guides, began talking to us and actively engaging with its community. The Facebook pages suddenly reopened for business overnight! They even started an Instagram account dedicated to farming pictures for use on their website via #paintingwarhammer. That's alongside monthly painting competitions to have your stuff showcased!

Those Facebook pages were the focal point for the one of the best bits of community engagement for gamers – FAQs! For years, the various iterations of Warhammer have languished with either substandard or entirely missing clarifications and errata. No longer! We’ve been given almost absurdly detailed documents (most of which are admittedly still in First Draft status) that have gone a long way towards helping with the increasingly complex 7^th Edition of Warhammer 40,000. Even better, these documents were built from solicited community feedback. Finally, Games Workshop seems like it’s listening; understanding what a powerful resource its community can be when it encourages it to behave in a positive manner.

One moment stood out for me. At first they suggested a house rule bringing Space Wolf, Blood Angels and Chaos Dreadnoughts’ into line with the Codex: Space Marines’ brethren by giving them two attacks. The community suggested this ought to just be an erratum to the rules. GW agreed. This would have been unthinkable only a couple of years ago – due to community feedback, Games Workshop changed a unit profile in an official FAQ. Madness! They’ve even put a call out for suggestions for the next edition of the Age of Sigmar General’s Handbook!

Leaks have traditionally been one of Games Workshop’s real bugbears. They seemed impossible to keep a lid on. Poorly taken photos of magazines and ill-remembered rules were as often able to completely stymie hype as they were to get anyone excited.

When Magnus the Red leaked – we initially saw this:

Not the way you'd want your brand new model judged.

Not bad, considering many of the leaks I’ve seen. But I doubt a crumpled-up photo of a box was how GW wanted to showcase the release of the first plastic Primarch (and first 40k Primarch since the early 90s)!

So, Games Workshop upped the ante with this masterpiece:

Games Workshop has come to the realisation that the best way to respond to those inevitable leaks is to outdo them. And it works!

The amusing videos didn’t stop there, with spoof adverts for the XL Chaos Black Spray which I recommend you check out. They’re probably a bit over-long, in hindsight. And I suspect that they’re mostly funny because it’s Games bloody Workshop. They’re having fun! It’s so weird to see!

They even set up an entire website dedicated to the community; Warhammer Community. I’m not sure what to think so far. It’s better than hiding the blog in some forgotten part of the main website like they did with ‘What’s New Today’ in its latter years. It’s all done with good cheer and personality, and a not that long ago this is content that would have been in White Dwarf. There’s good stuff – I hope they do more tactics articles like the one they did for Genestealer Cults.

The site also has a regular feature called ‘Rumour Engine’. Here the community is shown a tiny, out of context image from an unreleased model and invited to guess what it is. This is probably the best compromise secretive Games Workshop could come up with. It’s important to maintain hype about existing releases and at the same time tease the audience with something new. I wish it was more though. I miss the days where Games Day would roll around and we’d get pictures of unreleased models in cabinets.

What is it? I've no idea. (Actually, I think I do. A gyrinx. Shh!)

Regimental Standard is a WordPress blog that’s ‘Required Reading for the Modern Guardsman’. If you remember the old ‘Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer’, this is very much in that style, being silly and over the top Imperial propaganda. It’s one-note, and not quite deadpan enough for me. If it read more like actual propaganda I’d check the blog out more often. Instead it’s more of a straight up spoof with ‘hilarious’ footnotes about how the survival rate is only 1%. As it is, I check it out occasionally when its linked by the 40k Facebook page but otherwise it’s pretty missable.

Most recently, Games Workshop have started ‘Warhammer Live’, which I’ve not had a chance to check out yet. It’s Twitch.tv based videos, with battles reports and interviews. I’m a little worried that paid-for streamed content is them returning to the dark ways of the past. Hopefully all the useful things like painting guides, news, and tactical discussions will stay on YouTube and the Warhammer Community website.

What this all means is that Games Workshop is no longer the faceless monolithic entity we once knew. Instead it’s become something a lot more approachable and has caught up with the way things are done in this modern, social media dominated, age. Before they could have been justifiably accused of having an outright hostile attitude to its community, with a well-deserved reputation for arrogance. Now they’ve switched that around and shown a willingness to poke fun at themselves.

Does this mean Games Workshop is a different company now? Possibly, in some ways. Certainly, there’s been changes on the Board. It’s possible that their entire corporate attitude has changed but I think what’s really happened is they’ve just seen what other companies are doing.

This engagement doesn’t just benefit Games Workshop – although I would not be surprised at all to see a decent uptick in their sales over the last year – it’s benefitted the gaming community too. We’re getting more out of GW; be it models we want, rules or painting tutorials. In 2016 alone we saw things we would never have dared to dream of five or so years ago. Both Deathwatch and Genestealer Cults in the same year! Blood Bowl coming back! The pessimism of the recent past regarding Games Workshop’s business practises has gone. Now there’s hope that maybe we can all get the miniatures and rules we’ve been dreaming of. They're even asking the community which models they want pulled from the archives for their 'Made to Order' range, which is really neat.

More of this. This is good.

Personally, I’d like to see more of this engagement. With the FAQs Games Workshop has shown that it’s willing to use the community as a resource for its rules development. As a result they’ve asked for help with the Age of Sigmar General’s Handbook. I’d like to see the same for 8^th Ed 40k. We know it will come – and we also know that whilst Games Workshop can still arguably be said to be the leader of the pack in model quality, their rules design has long been their weak-spot. I think previewing and open playtesting with the community could help. I’m not convinced that the community is any better at rules (rules design is hard), but giving them time to get used to changes is a positive move. It would prevent the shock that provokes angry and unreasonable responses from fans and gamers.

Games Workshop is clearly feeling like they can take risks right now – and that’s good. It shows confidence, a welcome relief from the arrogance we’d knew. I want more of this. If the community and Games Workshop have a good relationship, both can prosper. Based on this article from the Telegraph about their changing financial fortunes, it’s looking like that’s been true so far.

Morkai's Hunters - A Space Wolves Grey Hunter Pack

Morkai's Hunters, the foremost Grey Hunter pack in the Deathwolves.

By happy coincidence, both of my Grey Hunter packs were mentioned in Companies of Fenris as belonging to the Deathwolves; the Great Company of Harald Deathwolf. Here's the latest addition of the two - Morkai's Hunters. 

Thoughts On.... Companies of Fenris: Space Wolves Painting Guide

Type of Hobby: Miniatures Wargame (Supplement)

Number of Players: 2

Authors: Games Workshop Design Studio

Publisher: Games Workshop

Price: £20

Games Workshop have really been on good form recently with the quality of their painting tutorial videos. In many ways I thought that this book didn't really need to exist, as actually seeing someone paint is infinitely more useful than reading a description - but a real focus on variety and fleshing out the background of some of the less well known aspects of the Space Wolves makes the book well worth the asking price in my opinion.

The Great Companies

The guide presents four very different great companies, the Firehowlers, the Deathwolves, the Iron Wolves and the Champions of Fenris. This shows the depth that a single chapter can have within it, showcasing a few of the different themes you can choose. Space Wolves get a lot of flak for their recent focus on the 'wolf' side of the coin, but there's plenty of other options you can choose if you so wish and this book really shows them off. It's great to see a couple of the less obvious choices shown off here; Ragnar and his company would have been easy to throw into this book, but it's great to see other Wolf Lords getting a turn in the limelight.

There's a lot more space dedicated to background than I was expecting, giving a broad overview of the companies, then focusing in on the history and accomplishments of various packs within them, accompanied by lots of GWs usual high quality photographs. Interspersed there's advice on pack markings, how to apply company markings to vehicles and other iconography. The information is nice, and presented pretty organically, but it would have been better if it was all in one section within the book.

Each company has its own cool aesthetic, the warriors of the Firehowlers are covered in tattoos representing their accomplishments and look every bit the berserkers, whilst on the other end of the spectrum you've got the cold and mechanical Iron Wolves. Sven Bloodhowl and Egil Iron Wolf are pretty cool converted miniatures too and whilst they're not too hard to work out given the book tells you what they're actually based on, it would have been nice to have seen proper step by step tutorials for these.

This is all the stuff I actually bought the book for, if I'm honest; I'm reasonably confident painting my army at this stage. I'm pretty satisfied with the information presented, it gives just enough hints and ideas without outright giving the definitive answers or listing all the packs within the companies. There's still plenty of room for your own imagination!

By some serendipity, the two Grey Hunter packs I'd painted so far happened to be ones detailed within the book as belonging to the Deathwolves! Happy with that! I also learnt that within the Deathwolves the Wolf Guard keep their old pack markings, just painting them yellow and black. With that in mind I decided a little repaint was in order!

I won't be following the book entirely strictly though - I like the naming convention I've come up with for my vehicles, for example. (Everything is named after something from Norse mythology - Rhinos are named for wolves, Predators for weapons, Land Raiders for gods etc.)

Paint All the Things

I don't think that there is a single aspect of painting a space wolf that isn't in this book. Armour, fur, plasma coils, bone, parchment, metal, gold, gems, it's all covered. The only omission I noticed was no tips for painting eyes. A weird oversight but I have noticed painting eyes is falling out of fashion, so maybe that's why.

Not content with telling you how to paint everything, there's usually several different methods for doing it! It's a great resource, with eight methods for painting fur and nine for painting the faces of your warriors! I can't praise the sheer variety of painting guides in the book enough - each ranges from only a few steps to about 12, depending on the level of detail you're after - and you're bound to find a way of doing things that works for you.

Yet I'm not sure I can recommend this book alone for a new painter - Games Workshop still seem insistent on not teaching basic technique in their guides. You won't discover how to drybrush; or take care of your brushes; or correctly thin your paints in this book. Thankfully the internet is an amazing resource for that kind of information but I wish Games Workshop would start putting that kind of information in again. They're putting it in their video tutorials, which are free, so I'm incredibly surprised it's not going into their paid products.

A Nearly Perfect Resource

If you want some tips on how to paint your Space Wolves, or something to help you work out pack or company markings, this is a great book. The price is right too; at £20 it's a downright bargain for a Games Workshop product. I'm really interested to see if GW releases any similar products for other armies - it would be a shame if a product of this quality was a one off.

Thoughts On... Codex: Space Wolves

I'm really a relatively new Space Wolf player, so this was the first time I got to have 'new codex excitement!' with them. As the weeks went on, I was enthused in equal measure by the Stormwolf and the new Dreadnought kit (which I totally called, by the way!) It was nice to have something to really get excited about. Games Workshop's marketing is nonsense (or even non-existent) but I think for those of us still interested these occasional opportunities to get excited are really fun and make me feel like a kid again.

I was a little concerned that my army wasn't finished and that I'd have trouble incorporating new things into my plans but, thankfully, that isn't the case at all. If anything, I think my army is in a stronger place than ever!

New Book with a New Presentation

I really like the new layout, having a master wargear list and each unit having its own entry complete with points value. It's about the only thing from the old 3rd Edition codexes worth bringing back and I'm really glad they have! It makes making an army so much quicker/easier. (Although, you know, use Battlescribe!) Kudos to GW for finally nailing this.

There's plenty of pretty pictures too, which is par for the course. These are mostly the new style 'action shots' with plenty of snow and smoke effects and red lighting (why always red?) They're pretty, and it's nice to have inspiring shots like that, but I miss the old showcase of miniatures style. Still, I guess it's pretty redundant now each unit entry comes with a photo. And it's nitpicky, I know, but now they've got plenty of models painted up for several of the companies, it's a bit depressing to see models from Ragnar's company fighting under Logan, when it would be more evocative for them to use the Champions of Fenris themselves.

My Blood Claws are going to travel in style!

The new units are all pretty spiffy too. I love the Stormwolf - a big old flying transport with an absurd number of guns? Yes please! If anything, I think being all round AV12 is a little bit too much. I'll see how it goes when I actually field one. I really like the look of it too - it's a bulky transport, with just enough Space Wolf frills. It fits perfectly with the Space Marine utilitarian aesthetic. The fact it subtly looks like a wolf's head is even better and a nice touch. That could easily have been overdone but I think it's note perfect here.

Not quite as sold on the Stormfang. The big gun sounds fun, but even if I didn't need the transport capacity of the Stormwolf losing the turret would be a bit much just for a big blast and lance (not that helpful against other fliers!)

This is awesome. AWESOME.

Logan's chariot isn't something I'm that bothered with in terms of my army; I don't see myself adding the Great Wolf. However, I do think it's so utterly, brilliantly, 40k. I think a lot of people really want 40k to be ultra-serious grimdark, when really 40k has always been a bit of a comedy and a satire. Technology that makes no sense is entirely 40k. If my army was the Great Wolf's company I'd be excited to add this. 

The Saga of the Deathwolves

Now an actual named character!

One thing that's really excited me about this new codex is the focus on my Wolf Lord of choice: Harald Deathwolf! Better yet, he's somehow managed to get more space in the book than Ragnar Blackmane (the previous poster-boy for the Space Wolves) or even the Great Wolf himself, Logan Grimnar! There's a really evocative artwork of Harald in a battle between the Deathwolves and the daemons of Tzeentch. Harald's saga is detailed too, built from the fluff from the White Dwarf that accompanied his miniature. 

The Great Companies have all been given names too; so henceforth Harald Deathwolf's Great Company shall simply be called 'the Deathwolves'. 

Harald's rules are pretty nice; he's got Outflank and has the now improved 'Saga of the Wolfkin' warlord trait (saves me having to worry about rolling it!), alongside making all Fenrisian Wolves leadership 10 if they're within a foot of him, and being immune to flamers (thank you ice troll cloak!) I think there's a lot of fun to be had with Harald. Very pleased. 

Thunderwolf Cavalry have got cheaper too, making one of my favourite units even more viable!  Not only that, but they can take even more special melee weapons, no longer limited to a single one in a pack. That's a lot of potential high strength models with at least 5 attacks each. You could create a silly deathstar if that's your thing! Even better, now one of the models is a pack leader, meaning the unit has a character. Space Wolves should be able to get stuck into more challenges! 

As a little bonus, Fenrisian Wolves are now scoring and don't weirdly cost more for characters to buy them as pets. But they're still leadership 5, and Saga of the Wolfkin no longer gives an army wide bonus to their leadership, so they're going to just flee the field more often than not after taking the inevitable casualties. This is mitigated by keeping Harald near them but then he's not outflanking! I'll keep using a unit for flavour purposes, plus they look really cool running down the battlefield, but I think they're still going to either do absolutely nothing or an awful lot in games. Very, very, swingy. 

Stalwarts of the Company

Blood Claws will finally be seeing the use they've always deserved!

Blood Claws, which of all the units in my army are the one that hit the hardest and won me the most games, are finally getting the recognition I've always known they deserved. Not only are the cheaper, they're a lot more so than I expected! I would have thought a single point knocked off them would have been enough but they're only 12 points each! 12! Admittedly, I've lost the ability to reliably outflank them but at 12 points Blood Claws are a steal; especially as they no longer need babysitting (although that was fun!) Stick a Wolf Priest with these guys and I promise you won't be disappointed.

Whilst Blood Claws got much better, Grey Hunters are about the same. I think this is fine. They've gone up a point (if you want the close-combat-weapon) and no longer get a free special weapon. They always seemed slightly undercosted and now they feel fine. The sky isn't falling, they're not suddenly useless (as the 'internet' seems to insist!) and they should still be the backbone of most forces. Honestly, I can't get my head round the idea that a 1 point increase has suddenly invalidated/ruined Grey Hunter focused armies. If anything, they're a little bit better now that you no longer need to choose between a Wolf Guard Pack Leader and a second special weapon! Keep using them - they'll still do everything you used them for before, maybe a little more if you kit them right.

Wolf Priests have gone up 10 points but gained Feel No Pain (6+) which is a great thing to give an advancing squad of Blood Claws. My Wolf Priest has always been amazing in games, so I'm expecting him to keep doing what he's always been doing; using Preferred Enemy to turn Blood Claws from great to brilliant.

Rune Priests are dirt cheap now too - I fully expect mine will be seeing the field a lot more now, especially when I need a cheap HQ/Warlord.

Wolf Scouts have been hit hard though. It's sad to see them lose 'Behind Enemy Lines' - being able to appear behind the enemy really made them feel like veteran infiltrators. Now they're just scouts with a better WS/BS. I think the new page layout is the reason for this - there doesn't look like there's room for the rule on the page. A real shame.

I love Dreadnoughts and I'm pretty certain this is the coolest one GW has ever made.

On the other hand, the new Dreadnought kit is amazing. There's just something incredibly metal about an axe and shield Dreadnought. Muderfang is ridiculous as well, seriously tempted by him! My Dreadnought with a multimelta got a little bit cheaper too.

I'm tempted to try the new Force Organisation Chart too, that gives any unit in the army a chance to outflank and lets you take up to six HQs. A lot of fun could be had there, but I'm not convinced it's worth losing Objective Secured. I'll have to give it a try.

Epic Tales yet to be Told 

The new Codex has given me a lot to think about, planning for the future. My plan to bring my army up to 2,000 points is now: 1 Stormwolf, 10 Grey Hunters, 1 Rhino, 1 Predator Annihilator.

Beyond that, I want more Dreadnoughts! At least two - one with Axe and Shield has to be done. I've always wanted a shooty Dread too and I think a missile launcher/helfrost cannon Dreadnought would be very flexible.

Another three Thunderwolves would be nice too, considering the theme of my army! I'd probably use the opportunity to get different special weapons. Maybe power/frost swords, for higher initiative.

Now I can use them in a 10 man squad of Grey Hunters, Wolf Guard are in my future. I'll probably buy a box of Space Wolves with some Devastators and make some Wolf Guard and Long Fangs.

Viking Warriors with Bite

I think this new Codex and I are going to get on just fine. Accusations of blandness and nerfed Grey Hunters are, I think, unfounded. Certainly we've gained more than we lost. And the new stuff is pretty great! Underutilised stuff has got a needed buff, but overused stuff hasn't been hurt too hard. (7th edition kicked Long Fangs in the pants long before this Codex did!) Mind you, I'm no expert, but I think this looks like a well balanced book.

The Sons of Fenris are renewed and ready to fight in the name of Russ and the Allfather! For the Wolftime!

Space Wolves - Reinforcements!

I haven't forgotten my Space Wolves. Far from it - thanks to the recent rumours and upcoming releases they've been at the forefront of my mind! I've been working on about 500 points worth of new additions; although who knows what they'll be in the new Codex?

Harald Deathwolf and a selection of his company, ready for undercoating!

They've already seen action against the Imperial Guard and it was a pretty convincing victory. Pretty pleased with them so far! Can't wait to get them painted up. (although I expect I'll do so at my usual glacial pace...)

Harald Deathwolf himself!

The Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf is one of my absolute favourite miniatures, and the one that made Space Wolves an army I had to play around with, rather than just one I was fond of. It has so much character, and I think the thunderwolf sculpt is the best I've seen. 

As yet unnamed Grey Hunter squad!

Wolves and Tanks were the twin ideas behind my army, and I think the Razorback counts! I've kept the wolfiness low on it, as the Razorback is a (relatively) new design and I wanted it to seem fresher than the Rhinos.

I made sure all the unhelmeted heads in this squad were unique within my army, and the Mark IV armour will be a nice change to paint!

Predator Tank!

If the Razorbacks title of 'tank' is a bit questionable, I don't think this is! I always wanted a Predator, and now I have one! I gave it the blades at the front to break up its profile a bit and make it seem a bit more imposing than the transports.

Old metal model, given new life!

Finally, the 15th member of my Blood Claw pack! Armed with a flamer, he's an old metal model from the 90s with new bits!

Thoughts On... Warhammer 40,000 - 7th Edition

Type of Hobby: Miniatures Wargame

Number of Players: 2

Publisher: Games Workshop

Price: £50

The Latest Grim, Dark, Future

Comes in a fancy sleeve. Fancy.

I've been playing Warhammer 40,000 since the mid 90s and the second edition of the game so it's somehow very strange to be writing my thoughts on the seventh edition of the rules. Nonetheless, they arrived a couple of months ago after a very short gap since sixth of just less than two years. 

I don't think anyone was expecting a totally new direction after such a short hiatus, yet this is more than just a simple rules tidyup, with massive changes to the way the Force Organisation Chart works, alongside a new Psychic Phase and a new set of missions with variable objectives. 

Three Books for the Price of... Uh... Well...

It's impossible to let a Games Workshop product escape discussion without some talk of its price and the steep £50 price tag attached to these books certainly merits comment. It's only been two years since sixth edition and that book wasn't cheap. I think being expected to spend another £50 on the game, albeit in the form of three very pretty books, is a little cheeky. Worse, I think £50 is a very high addon to a game that, due to the high price of miniatures, paints and other hobby things already has an incredibly high price of entry. Still, this is par for the course for Games Workshop and most of us have come to expect it, even if we're not happy about it. I don't know what it would take to change this that wouldn't be incredibly destructive to the company which, despite it's flaws, I still love dearly.

One, two three!

For your £50 you get three books, each about the size of the Space Marine Codex. They're full colour hardbacks, which has been the standard for Games Workshop for some years now. They're full of beautiful pictures and artwork, which is something Games Workshop has always excelled at. If nothing else, you at least feel like they may be coming close to being worth the cost. 

Number 1 is 'A Galaxy of War' - this is the book that contains all the hobby information that was previously in the back of the rulebooks. It features an introduction to the hobby; the trio of painting, background and playing and finishes off with photographs of the 'Eavy Metal painted miniatures from the studio, which are always nice to flick through. I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected, and I think anyone new to the hobby coming across it would be suitably excited by what they've gotten themselves into.

Number 2 is 'Dark Millenium', which contains all the background contained in the previous rulebook, along with some new stuff. It is, sadly, mostly reprinted but it's a perfect primer for someone new to the game and setting. 

Number 3 is 'The Rules', which is where most of the attention will go for the majority of people and where, shockingly enough, you can find all the rules to play the game.

The most interesting thing about the use of three books is the order they are numbered in. Hobby first, background second, and game last. This says a lot about how Games Workshop views their product, and how they'd like it to be perceived. While presenting the hobby aspects and the background over the rules is admirable, I wonder if there's a disconnect between what gamers actually want and how Games Workshop is selling their product. This seems especially relevant with the recent rise of pre-painted and/or pre-assembled miniatures games like X-Wing and Dust Tactics. Perhaps this reorganising of the content is a reaction to that, an attempt to sway things back the other way. 

The New Grimness

Lost in the warp since '98!

The single biggest change is the (re)introduction of the Psychic Phase. It's nice to see that it isn't just a copy and paste of the Magic Phase from Warhammer Fantasy Battles, although I wouldn't have blamed them if that had happened! Instead you're trying to get a 4+ on at least one of your dice for each warp charge point the power costs to cast (usually one or two). You generate the amount of dice you have to play with in your pool randomly, but also get a dice for each level of Mastery of your psykers. Powers can be denied in a similar way. It's not over complicated, but there's enough nuance there that there's potential for interesting decisions in game. That's all I ask for, really. It's certainly more robust than the rules were before, which I always felt never really did psykers justice. They're a big part of the 40k lore and its great to see them put back in the limelight. 

Alongside this new phase is a new lore - Daemonology. This is a twin faceted lore with both Santic and Malefic powers. The Santic powers are mostly for use by the Grey Knights, although most can take them at a cost and they're filled with buffs and powers designed to defeat daemons. They're cool, but not really interesting. It's the Malefic powers where things get exciting - and more than a little bit heretical.  The Primaris Power is 'Summoning' and is a foul ritual that allows you to summon forth heinous Daemons from the warp. The rest of the powers are similarly sacrilegious, with terrible effects. One even lets you sacrifice your psykers very soul to summon a terrifying Greater Daemon. What's fascinating about this lore is that it's not the exclusive domain of the evil powers; almost anyone with a psyker can choose to take these powers. I've seen many cry foul at this, but using evil to defeat evil (and the risk that accompanies this act) is a key part of the Warhammer 40,000 setting for me. It's something that was explored in depth in the brilliant Eisenhorn trilogy by Dan Abnett and being able to struggle with those same questions on the tabletop is going to create a lot of exciting games at my table. 

Another much talked about addition to Warhammer 40,000 is the Maelstrom of War missions. All the previous Eternal War missions are still there, but it's these six new missions that really add something interesting to the game. They remind me a lot of the old second edition mission cards. Using a 'deck' (you can buy an actual deck, or use the d66 table in the book) of objectives, which change throughout the game as you complete them. I'm a fan of the idea, as it creates dynamic and unpredictable games. Unfortunately, the execution isn't perfect. Firstly, the 50% of the objectives are identical, which is a real shame. They're the ones that deal with taking points on the table. A roll of 13 to 'Capture and Control' objective 3 should, in some way, be different to a 33 to 'Storm and Defend' objective 3. The Ork Codex has revealed that each race will, in time, get their own deck of Tactical Objectives so I'm hopeful that eventually this problem will sort itself out. There's also the risk that one player could get a string of objectives that he simply can't complete (either through them actually being impossible, like harnessing the warp without having a psyker; or because they're unreasonably difficult, like taking an enemies objective the other side of the board) whilst his opponent gets away with really easy objectives. Law of averages says this should even out over time, but it's going to be an occasional frustration. Again, I'm hopeful that the faction specific decks will fix this, but it's a problem that should have come up in playtesting and shouldn't be there in the first place.

Warhammer 40,000 has also done away completely with the Force Organisation Chart! Well, almost. You now have to choose between an Unbound army, which can contain anything you want (subject to some restrictions on the Allies Matrix), or a Battle-forged Army - which is subject to the old FoC and gets some pretty nifty bonuses. Firstly, you can reroll on the Warlord table of your choice (which are all much more useful than they have been previously!) and, crucially, your troops choices can hold an objective against anything except Battle-Forged troops. That's a great way to keep troops important to a list - especially seeing as everything scores again now. 

There's a lot of potential for fun lists with Unbound, although I think you need to be careful that the benefits outweigh the cons. As a Space Wolf player, I'm sorely tempted to put a Leman Russ or two into my army. Seems fitting and I miss them. 

Lost in the Warp?

Where have you gone?! 

There are notable casualties in this latest edition of Warhammer 40,000, however. Where have the Fortifications and Mysterious Terrain gone? I liked both of those things! Fortifications live on in Stronghold Assault, but taking them out of the core book still seems cheeky to me. Guess my Aegis Defence Line is just terrain now.

Losing Mysterious Terrain is an omission that I suspect a lot of (dull) people will be pleased about. My group will be coming up with our datasheets for these, I think. I felt they added a lot to the game, an air of uncertainty that was interesting to play around with. I think they needed more beneficial elements, and probably a higher chance to have nothing unusual happen, but the idea was solid.

A Billion Changes, Across A Billion Worlds

There's lots more, smaller, tweaks throughout the book. And some bigger ones - Lords of War are now part of standard games now. So bring that Baneblade. I like a challenge. 

Ultimately, though, the game is still the same sort of Warhammer 40,000 we've had since third edition came out in '98. Which is fine. I'm not sure it's worth £50, though. At least most of the changes are good, it's just a shame we've had to pay so much, so soon.

Oh well. Anyone fancy a game?

The Flaming Scimitar

With its arabic theme and djinn's, The Flaming Scimitar is one of the most characterful models in Dreadfleet. It's got a real feeling of motion to thanks to those swept forward sails being inflated by the air djinn's great gust.

The Flaming Scimitar and Cog

It also turned out to be a bit of a nightmare to paint. Not the purple, or the gold. Purple and gold are pretty easy. Those sails though - those drove me a little mad. Many, many coats of paint were needed to paint those up and get a solid coat down. The worst bit was the designs on them though - even being slightly embossed, it was still a challenge. I'm not that pleased with the air djinn either; I think it looks messy and I may go back and redo it someday.

Overall though, despite it taking me over twice as long as Grimnir's Thunder and The Black Kraken combined and still not looking perfect, I'm pleased with it. I like the fire efreet, I like the little water spirits riding the waves. I am pleased with the overall look of the sails, even if they're not going to win me any prizes!

Next - something dwarfen.