Devourer of Hope

The Devourer of Hope is finished - we'll he's been finished for a while, but now is photographed as well!

I've re-ordered my piles of skulls as the warp seems to have eaten them all too, so the Soul of Atrocity is still waiting to be constructed. However I also acquired some black spray at last, so will get to some defilery things soon.

There's No Imagery Like Satanic Imagery, Like No Imagery I Know!

Still need to touch up the metal edging and gloss coat the panelling, but now about 80% done. 

Bonus close up of his face:

I Have Made a Huge Mistake

What mistake is that? Well, I've decided that painting all the armour plates on my Brass Scorpion like this...

...is a really great idea. Yeah, not my best moment.

To start with I draw the core pattern up in white:

I then drybrush with orange around the lines, then retrace the lines in yellow and white:

After that I give the area a light wash with orange ink, then retrace the lines again in orange as well as adding a few lines in orange only. This plate is the smallest and took a little over an hour, but how bad can it be?

Oh.

Apocalypse 2nd Ed - First thoughts

Overall, I think the new edition is fantastic. Clears up a lot of the ambiguity and streamlines much of it (I like that they suggest scrapping all vehicle damage aside from blown up for instance) and it's written much tighter, so there's not as many holes in the rules.

 (Apocalypse, in macro form)

They also toned down the horribly broken combos, and while there are a few solid choices to be made there aren't any no-brainers. StrD is not so bad as some make it out to be IMO. Highly effective at killing vehicles as always, but there's a 1 in 6 chance it will do nothing to infantry.


 One thing I don't like is the new "after the break" system for some things as it's a bit too meta for my tastes (and I usually love meta stuff). I understand it as a concept and I do like that they've included more of a guide for organising, but tying rules to when you have lunch is a bit... odd.
Not a huge fan of keeping most vehicles off the board either by restricting their entry, but I see why they did it. Still no big deal and I'd rate this version 50% better than the old one.

 As for my thoughts on specific dealies...

 Assets:

 Flank March - now only brings on one formation. Did you know you can have 200 Necron warriors in a formation?

 Trophy Kill can be good as it's easy to vapourise people with StrD now and earn an easy 3 VPs to recycle Titans over and over with.

 Tunnel Rats could be used to hilarious effect with Precise Coordinates to deploy gigantic swathes of IG to the board up close and personal.

 Most of the Space Marine ones are kinda terrible, mostly due to small scale or not particularly epic effect. 

Daemon Shell got improved as you don't have to nominate who has it until you shoot it.

 Ere We Go can't hurt in the world of random charges.

Idol of Gork (or possibly Mork) - give you Rage! Must be in your deployment zone... uh, no.

 Mek Workshop - restores vehicles to full hull points. Combine with Stompa Mobz and have everyone hate you.

 Strands of Fate. Good for bragging rights or just being an insufferably smug Eldar player. Unless you roll a one in which case play it off as a joke.

Webway Assault - crazy good, especially when combined with the Kabalite Web Strike to give you four vehicle accessible portals anywhere on the board.

World Digestion - still as annoying as ever.

Entropic Plague - everyone will hate you. Forever. But you're playing Necrons so that should only make you more powerful.

Formations

The big change is that Formations are now free - so if you have the models just whack them into one because there's only benefits (aside from needing to squadron up).

Some interesting things about the changes to Superheavy vehicles are that, aside from being unstoppable killing machines, they're generally faster, can be targeted by psychic powers (Baneblade with 4+ invulnerable!) but can also be locked in HtH combat, which is a huge change with how assaulting Titans will play out. Before with having to disengage each turn it left attackers vulnerable to countercharges and being shot to death. Now they can tie up a Titan much longer. I think StrD melee weapons will be a little more common now out of it, as most Titans don't have a high attack score to just bludgeon their way out of combat (even with Stomp attacks).

High Commands are also basically amazing as they give you one free Strategic Asset during the game.

Anyways, arm up, and let's look at what's cookin':

Lord Castellan's Command is a great choice for an IG army, with lots of benefits at a relatively low points cost. Trick is to keep Creed alive of course.

The Space Marine Companies are both good, especially if you're planning on taking them anyway. The only downside is you have to deploy them all together. 1st Company is a bit better as it gives everyone Deep Strike and Fear as well as lots of other benefits.

Wings of Sanguinius can deep Strike in the enemy's turn, meaning next turn (if they survive) they can run around and assault and so on.

The GK Extermination Force is probably the only formation I would come close to calling broken. While it fits the background if you bring it against Daemons in particular don't expect many invites again. It does have the weakness that the Dreadknight is the key so it's not that dangerous.

The Lord of Skulls is perhaps a little overpriced (I must meditate on this some more), but not hugely.

The Tetragon of Darkness isn't anywhere near as annoying with the change to StrD weapons.

Dread Mobs are a great investment for any Waaaaagh.

The Stompa went up in points..? I'm not seeing why.

Phantom Titans are good now, really good (assuming you can keep them out of assault). The D-Cannon did lose the ability to ignore shields, which kinds blows, but the new Superheavy damage rules really benefit the Eldar the most.

Sunstorm Squadrons got even crazier and will utterly annihilate huge chunks of the battlefield easily. One of the deadliest formations in the book IMO.

Fielding a Wraithknight Dreamwalker Squad is nifty and could really catch people off guard when they start running around 11" a turn.

All the Dark Eldar formations are good, but Dark Olympiad (even better with the Duke)and Kabalite Web Strike are the stand outs. Everything in the book for the DE works so well together they can easily be a top Apoc army without any Superheavies.

Endless Swarm is kinda insane as after turn 4 you can only Snap Shot at it, and it is theoretically infinitely large...

The Heirophant has been fixed up so it now actually has workable rules, and I don't think is either borked or over priced depending how you look at it.

The Necrons are a real mixed bag. A few don't seem very good due to either just not being very good (Obelisk - very situational) or impractical (Baleful Necropolis - stay within 3"? Why, yes, I do want lots of StrD pie plates!). Infinite Phalanx is funny as it's a single 50+ warrior unit. The downside is that it's all one unit so can be bogged down in HtH by a few guys for a long time.

The Tesseract Vault and Transcendent C'Tan can be dead killy (the C'Tan especially), but can also be very, very pricey. You can easily make the C'Tan cost over 800pts, and it will wreck face without doubt, but it also explodes horribly when it dies so...

The Macro Cannon Aquila is a fairly cost effective way of getting StrD and an AV15 bunker into the deal. The Vortex version isn't as good simply due to the Vortex rule changes.


So that's my thoughts on the first pass of the book. Not necessarily accurate, not necessarily final, but certainly there. Or here. Or whatever.

Scorpio Colossi

Since my harvest of skulls is still yet to arrive I decided to get started on my Greater Brass Scorpion. Now obviously since I'm using its cannon for the Soul of Atrocity it would need something to fill its spot:

I never really liked the "gun face" look, and the pair of cluster caltrop pods from the Reaver Jetbike box fit perfectly. They're mounted on the front of a Sentinel and there's an armour plate from a Defiler claw above it.
If anybody complains about lack of demolisher canon they shoot death rays, obviously, I mean sheeze...

Less obviously all the armour plates and the fore claws are not glued on yet so they can be painted separately.

Also I'm not sure what to name this one. I was thinking Desecration of Hope, but it's not murderous enough. Something with Annihilation, Obliteration or the like in it maybe. Fast, brutal but with a sense of grandeur and giganticness to it. Suggestions welcome!

Review: Imperial Armour 12: The Fall of Orpheus

Imperial Armour Volume 12: The Fall of Orpheus is Forge World’s latest offering in the series, covering said fall at the hands of the dastardly Necrons. It’s the first to feature our cyborganised chums, but the Death Korps of Krieg and the Minotaurs Chapter are here for some familiarity.
What I’m interested to see is if they’ve overcome the all too familiar editing errors that hamstrung the last IA outing…

Story and Background

In a departure from the last few IA books volume twelve, despite the title, isn’t the full story. The background is, in fact, merely the prelude to the campaign setting. See, the background charts the Orpheus sector all the way from its discovery pre-Heresy through to the Necron incursion, and then stops after the Necrons have flattened the Imperial forces. The campaign is designed to represent the war to reclaim the sector / save what’s left, so there is no fixed winner or loser as in books such as Vraks or Badab.
That said Alan Bligh’s introduction (itself a good read) indicates that there may be more to come from the sector, so who knows what end will be made canon.

Now, my biggest gripe of IA:11 (aside from the editing, or lack thereof) was that there wasn’t enough Eldar. This book does and doesn’t address that issue, but I was left overall happy with how it was balanced. It’s told as a history analysis, a textbook account interspersed with snippets of Inquisitorial insights to guide future generations so they may avoid the same fate. Because of that the Necrons themselves don’t appear in the flesh, as it were, until almost the end. The best comparison I can draw is the movie Predator – you don’t really see the Predator until very late, but its influence guides and shapes the story and actions of those it’s toying with.
We, as outside observers with the benefit of our meta knowledge, can see what all these portents and mysterious actions are shaping into, but the Imperial forces’ lack of action seems almost reasonable in the circumstances. The Necrons are always there, doing their Necron-y thing, but like all good horror monsters they have the good sense to do it off camera.

The Necrons themselves aren’t left as shadowy bogeymen, and there are a great number of insights into how the different courts interact with one another, the different methodologies behind their long sleeps, and even some tidbits about the origins of the Flayer Virus.
I’ve seen a few people comment that they’ve been looking forward to the rumoured return of the Red Harvest, and it is certainly back here with a bloody vengeance. The particular Necron dynasty in the book, the Maynarkh, are all touched by the Flayer if not all totally crazy, so whilst the Flayed Ones are of course doing their whole “it puts the lotion on the skin” thing the rest of them are given reason to participate, and it brings a degree of pathos to their actions in my eyes.

The Imperials get some loving, as would be expected ,with the Death Korps having the usual background blurb and some new bits thrown in to do with their names and organisation. The Minotaurs have their turbulent and shrouded history revealed a little more after the Badab books, but no conclusions are drawn (though there are plenty more implications).

There are no particularly amazing moments that I feel the need to gush about, but more importantly there are no brain-dead moments of editorial idiocy to cringe at. In fact I didn’t notice a single error in the entire book! There may well be some, but given the hack job they did to 11 and 8’s numerous missing rules, it’s a million percent improvement.
I found it an enthralling read, well planned and dripping with atmosphere. Like Badab I, Orpheus is also a great resource for background junkies. There are small details about the procedures for colonising planets (including edicts that can just up and move a population if the Imperium sees fit, or give them all over to the Mechanicus), politicking and inter departmento relations. Despite the growing doom it gives a view into how a sector runs day-to-day, with the disruption and tension pirate raids cause interspliced with the economic balancing required of the different worlds.

Mmmmmurder donut

There is not a lot of action when compared to other IA books, but the Death Korps get a few battles and are allowed to show off a bit, while the Minotaurs wreck some serious face. It’s never one-sided in the combat, or, if it is, it goes to the Necrons who annihilate the ever-loving-bejeezus out of a lot of stuff with contemptuous ease due to surprise or overwhelming numbers.
The story does contain a few links to the Badab books by virtue of the Minotaur’s presence, and has a few cameos, such as a brief appearance by the Grey Knights and a retro appearance of the 8th Necromunda “Spiders” regiment, which was pretty neat.


I would also be remiss if I failed to give special mention to the art. This is hands down the best looking Imperial Armour to date, and I personally think the best looking GW book since Rogue Trader days. The illustrations are beautiful, and rendering the character plates over a black background with deep, shadowed colours was the obvious, but totally correct choice. To put it simply this book sis just so evocative, there’s little besides total praise I can say.
Literally the only negative I can think with the art is that they a) didn’t make the Asterion Moloc art as a poster – it is phenominal, and b) they don’t show enough of the Necron minis in the book. Mind you that does mean the diorama shots of the Death Korps fighting through tunnels takes on a very Aliens feel with the shadowy half-seen or unseen foe. See – even the negative is a good point!

Rules, Armylists and Units

There are two complete army lists presented – the Necron Dark Harvest and Death Korps of Krieg Assault Brigade – while the Minotaurs are essentially a list of add-ons for the current line of Space Marine Codexes.

The Necron Dark Harvest list is, aside from the few unique Forge World units, close to identical to the Codex list. There are some minor force-org changes , and many units gains some minor wargear choices, but the biggest change is to the HQ units who, to tie in with the Dynasty’s flayer taint, all have special rules that can make them go crazy during the game. Additionally the list can be built to be very construct heavy, mainly due to the additional Forge World units present.
The list is geared as a high number aggressive attack force that can take a lot of casualties. No doubt many of the usual Necron uber-builds will work just as well, but then there is no need to use the list.
There are a couple of special characters to use as well. First is Dynasty’s most implacable and deadly warlord, Joan Collins:

With shoulder pads like that I'm surprised GW hasn't tried to sue her...

I mean Kutlakh the World Killer. He’s not overly remarkable, but unusual (for the Necrons) in that to befit the army he is built as a close combat monster.

The other is Toholk the Blinded, a Chronomancer and Arch-Cryptek. He is a buff-giver, doling out bonuses to his war machines and re-rolls to units he joins.  Of the two Toholk seems to be more useful to me from that point of view, but he’s nowhere near as tough to kill.

New units are the Tomb Stalker, Tomb Sentinel, Acanthrites, mini pylons, Tesseract Ark and the Night Shroud Bomber.
The Sentry Pylons are heavy support units, also purchasable for the standard Codex, and come in batteries of 1-3. They are unique in that they don’t need crew and can deploy in a slightly dispersed formation.
They have three weapon choices, though only one can Skyfire/Intercept, but it’s got 120” range, so all good.

Tomb Stalkers haven’t changed much from the previous rules, but have a couple of options to bring them in line with the new Codex.
The variant model, the Tomb Sentinel is basically a Stalker with a short ranged no-save make a Str test or die blast weapon.

Tha Acanthrites are jump infantry with short range melta weapons and aren’t too shabby in close combat either.

The Tesseract Ark is essentially a gunboat. Heavy with moderate defences, but well armed. It hits very hard and, while it can take a punch, it's not as tough as a Monolith.

The Night Shroud’s rules look ok to me, and it is definitely a bomber, armed with twin-linked tesla destructors and five Death Spheres – str10, AP1, large blast, blinding, pinning bombs – and nothing else. It is tough with 4hp but only moderate armour.

The rules for the Gauss Pylon are also updated (the only Super Heavy in the book, actually), and the Tomb citadel has its rules introduced. The Tomb Citadel improves the shooting of a unit docked to the main building, gives a save to any unit on the citadel and can take a pair of gun turrets. It seems underpriced for what it does, as Necron forces castled up there would get a 3+ invulnerable and re-rolls to 1s on resurrection rolls.

The Minotaurs characters are Lord Asterion Moloch, Chaplain Ivanus Enkomi, Dreadnought Hecaton Aiakos and Vigilator-Sergeant Hamath Kraatos.

Asterion Moloch, like most Marine characters, is an unholy death-machine in combat, and is geared solely towards close combat. His profile and abilities are reminiscent of Lysander, though beefed up as befits a Chapter Master.

Enkomi, in addition to having one of the most metal mini in GW’s history:

Slaaaaaayeeerrrrr!!!!!

 is, amazingly, even more geared towards close combat than his glorious leader, buffing his squad into Rage filled Zealots.

Aiakos is a Contemptor dread with a special close combat attack.

Kraatos is, despite the name, not a(nother) hand to hand specialist, but the 2iC of the 9th company. He’s a devastator squad upgrade and carries a heavy bolter. Sorry, a sniper heavy bolter.

Most of the other units are updating some of the older units (Damoclese Rhino, Deathstorm Drop Pod, Sentry Gun) and including newer ones such as the Deimos Predators and Storm Eagles.



The Death Korps Assault Brigade list is, essentially, the Codex: Imperial Guard list with Forge World units subbed in.
They have the special character Marshal Karis Venner, who in keeping with the book’s theme, is a badass in melee. Yes, in IA12 even the Guard are hand to hand murder machines!
Otherwise the Death Korps, like the marines, are seeing a tidying up of older units (making the Hades less broken [it has to deep strike, as do units coming after so if the enemy blocks them they mishap]) and the inclusion of newer ones (Rapiers, Avenger).

As best I can tell every special rule is either cross-referenced or listed in the book, and I didn’t spot any particularly glaring oddities present in some of the more recent products. It seems the attention from the Horus Heresy series has made them pick up their game.



Campaign and other Rules

The Campaign is a pretty standard campaign set-up – multiple theatres, different battle types etc, with some limitations about assigning units to certain theatres making them unavailable in others, but nothing radically different from the last few books.
As mentioned above the campaign is less a reconstruction of the events in the book but a continuation of the war described. This is something I think Forge World would be better served by in some instances, so as to alleviate the debate of “the Imperium never wins” vs “they make the xenos suck and die too much” if nothing else.
The Zone Mortalis rules are also included here.

One notable thing I mentioned above is that there is only one Super Heavy in the book (the Gauss Pylon) and no Apocalypse formations – another sign Apoc is being updated soon?
One odd thing were the six pages of adverts in the back of the book for other IA tomes. Full colour ads for some of the newer releases. Given GW isn’t stocking FW in stores anymore it seems like a wasted effort to me as if you have this book you’re unlikely to be any more spurred to pick up a copy of IA Masterclass than you were ordering it from Forge World’s website.
Not a big deal, just… odd.


Summary and Scores

Overall a fantastic book. The army lists may not be divergent enough for everyone’s tastes, but then again they could be seen as not too divergent to be more widely acceptable. Even though the Necrons aren’t as visible as other xeno races in their books it felt they had a greater impact on the story, like the Tyranids in IA4.


Story and Background – 8/10. While you may think I’d give it higher I am aware that things like the methodology of a planet becoming an Imperial World isn’t something everyone is interested in, so the somewhat dryer text may be a bit dull for some folks. That said the story is skilfully crafted and the many asides and callouts are very characterful and enhance the book even more.

Art and Layout – 10/10. This is a gorgeous book that drips with atmosphere. Not much more to say than that.

Army Lists and Rules – 6/10. Again, a seemingly low score, but while well executed there is much of the same-old here. If you want new rules, or just to use one unit, this book will not hold a great deal of value for you. If you want rules that work, there will be no issues. On a positive units that have languished without a 6th ed update or have been long reviled are cleaned up and there is quite a host of special characters to choose from.

Extras – 7/10. The campaign fits the story, and is presented with a slight twist to the previous iterations. Zone Mortalis is a sensible addition and a great set of rules by themselves and a welcome inclusion.

Overall (not an average) – 9/10

Yep, I think it’s that good. Do keep in mind that I am basing this on a weighting towards the story and art over the rules as explained above. However if you’re a fan of 40k lore, this book is a great read.

Games Day Australia 2012

So here is my report from today’s Games Day Australia 2012 in Sydney.

First up were some changes to the venue – they’d improved the layout and positioning of the various events and stalls, as well as keeping the Forge World pre-orders separate, so thumbs up for that. The gaming area was shrunk to free up more space for the studio crew and hobby area, so overall the whole central area felt much less congested.

Don't know if attendance was down on last year, but it felt a little quieter. Mind you I spent almost the whole day in seminars so...
Parking was much easier as we weren’t competing with Young Talent Time auditions.

I missed the Black Library seminar (again), so went and said hello to Jes Goodwin, who signed my Compilation, which was pretty rad.

He had his original design sketches which were amazing and drool-worthy (the Sslyth was phenomenal! Makes me want to buy one, lol). When I asked he said he preferred no photos of them as he’s been burnt before by his designs being copied by “those companies that spring up making little bits”. Understandable, but I’m sorry I couldn’t share them with you.

 The original is so much better...

I stood in line for a bit waiting to look at the Golden Daemon, got bored, left the queue ran into a friend who had apparently not been home since seeing Apocalyptica last night, and was still pretty plastered. He’d apparently accosted Alan Merrett earlier about there being too many queues and it being confusing, ha ha.
And speaking of Alan, he didn’t speak at any of the seminars like last year, but was floating around and rather oddly directing the lines at the shop…

So then it was time for the first seminar of the day – and boy was it a big one: Forge World with Mark Bedford.

General

- The way he sees it, GW is like cake, and Forge World is like putting cream and cherries on top… well maybe not cherries but cocaine (yes, that was his analogy).

- Flooded with Marines? Well, they sell. Surprisingly everyone was very, very open about this fact and didn’t try to hide it in any way shape or form.

- Warlord Titan? Big kits are a balance of cost in time vs how much they’ll sell realistically. For instance the Manta took one and a half years for Will Hayes to produce, during which time he wasn’t getting much else done. Could he have made fifteen other kits that would have sold more in that time? That’s the numbers they run and why big kits are rarer. They do want to make a Warlord though.

- All they FW guys collect and play, and that’s often a trigger for nostalgia (“remember the X?”) and re-creating older units.

 The other side was all Baneblades

- Their design process is very flexible and reactive. They can go from nothing to production in the space of a month, but that is rare.

- The designers often do things of their own volition at home. The Tomb Stalker came about when Will Hayes brought it into the office and said “look what I made, reckon we can sell it?”. They decided to give it a go and have since sold “bucketloads”.

- Mark used to work in greenstuff, but now uses Super Sculpy as it doesn’t dry until he wants it to.

- Forge World was the brainchild of Tony Cottrell, who had been making some custom turrets that people were eating up. They hired on some freelance crew and started producing the first vehicle kits and the statues/busts. While the statue market slowed, the vehicle kits exploded.

- Apocalypse was the best thing to ever happen to Forge World, and nearly killed their production staff (in a good way).

- They would like to do what they did with Dark Eldar and release companion kits soon after a Codex launch more often.

- The terrain and Epic kits were discontinued due to sales not justifying them. They do have a permanent terrain guy now though, as with the Realm of Battle tiles and fortification rules they can tie the terrain pieces into the IA books more.

- General disparaging of people who don’t allow Forge World units in games :p

- Running joke: Bionic Hedgehogs.

Imperial Armour

- That Bran Redmaw mini seen but not released? Gone. Mark wasn’t happy with the quality so asked for it not to be released. Another sculptor has taken over the character.

- They monitor the GW studio release schedule to avoid putting something out just before a new codex (ie why Necrons are due now, not last year).

- Some units are designed for a specific book, some are designed just for the hell of it.

- They deliberately put extra characters in books, Badab being a prime example, so that if they have a spare moment they have a backlog to draw on for ideas.

- Next book is Necrons, Minotaurs and Death Corps of Krieg.

- “So we’ll be doing a big Necron vehicle.”
“It’s not just going to be a bigger pyramid, is it?”
“No… it’s an upside down sandcastle.”

- A Dark Eldar superheavy would fit their raider aesthetic, but still be big, “like and ocean liner”.

- I asked later about the low content of xenos in some books (particularly corsairs in IA12). Mark’s reply indicated there will be more in the Dark Eldar book, and that sometimes they hit time constraints or ideas just don’t work and they don’t have time to redo them.

Warhammer Forge

- The books are harder to write, as “you can’t kill off the Empire… ok, you’re all Nurgle now”, while in 40k you can blow up planets, systems or sectors with no worry. It’s also harder to explain why Khemri would be fighting Lizardmen in the Forge World format.

- Working on a Blackfire Pass book

– Orcs, gobbos, dwarves and empire (? Sorry, didn’t hear the last one and aren’t too familiar with Warhammer lore).

- They want to do variant army lists like in 40k – a Slaanesh knight list was the example given.

- What units they use can be tricky, due to Forge World’s more pricy nature. Hobgoblins, for example, would be impractical as they would require too many guys for their cost in real money.

- They do, however, want to explore Cathay and such, but in the future.

  Horus Heresy 

- “Will you be making the Primarchs?”
“If you’ve read the Black Library books you’ll understand when I tell you ‘I can’t say’.”

- They want to make all the weapon options/units available they can to “stop little companies springing up in Poland”.

- The Marine armour variants were testing the waters for a HH series, which they have been working on for a year or so.

- They are working closely with Black Library to include bits of each other’s work (the Caestus appears in Fear to Tread for example). This also means they don’t mess anything up, and might even lead to BL characters appearing in mini form.

- Mechanicus? Almost certainly, but not for a while - it’s something Mark really really wants to do.

- They know it can’t be all marines all the time, and there will be xenos and non-marine forces dealt with in time.

- First book will begin at the start of the Heresy, but the lists will be designed to show off pre-Heresy forces and their fighting styles, as no divergence into chaos had happened yet.

 - The Horus Heresy series is going to be ongoing, much like the Imperial Armour books, and each line will have a separate team working on it.

- The HH series is designed in such a way that people can use their existing armies as much as possible.

- Running quotes: “It’ll be like Christmas… it’ll blow your minds.”

This seminar was literally just under an hour, and it was straight into the design team one with Jes, Kevin Chin and Jeremy Vetock.


Design Seminar

 - Jes loves plastic. LOVES it. If he could he’d do everything in it as for a sculptor it’s far better with almost no distortion or deformation. He foresees a future with only special characters being finecast, and generic characters all being single frame plastics like the recent Warhammer releases and the limited Dark Vengeance Chaplain.

- They want to continue putting every unit option on a frame where possible. And lots of head options.

- They’re aiming to expand the digital aspect of the company. Jeremy got very excited about the prospect, but no specifics.

- Don't call the background "fluff" around Jes. One guy did and he corrected him, pointing out that it was Jeremy's job to create that, and calling it fluff devalued it. The questioner corrected himself by saying "the expanded universe background setting", which pleased Jes no end.

- A young lad asked the following “How come Tau and Space Marines are ‘battle brothers’?” and got a huge cheer and round of applause from the audience. The reply was that yes, Tau and Marines often murdered each other on sight, but there were enough times when they didn’t to justify it. The allies matrix is there as a guide, not a proscription.

- "Why did they swap Marine chapter symbols from right to left shoulder?"
"I don't remember."
One of the attendees ventured that it was so (in universe), that when advancing the enemy would see the chapter symbol on a PA guy and know who's killing them, while terminators shoot one handed, so keep it on their right.
Jes thought that was a superb explaination, so he was going to accept that. He then went on a ramble about contradictory history and so on for a bit.

- If they can they would like to introduce 40k Dogs of War type units to use as allies to bring in lesser races. One of the reasons they brought allies back.

- There is a mathematical formula for points cost, based off a man (Warhammer) or a Marine (40k). This is then adjusted by feel for how the unit works within a given army or theme of the army.

- No release date/info for Sisters, but they definitely aren’t canned and will be re-done properly.

- A lot of the discussion was about the creative process and such, so not easy to describe. They were all very funny and there was a lot of laughter, so much of the discussion fall into the “you had to be there” category.

Dark Vengeance 

- All attempts to draw out any release data on Dark Angels or Chaos were skilfully avoided.

- Dark Angels were chose because it allowed them to include Deathwing and Ravenwing rather than generic units. Chaos were in because they’ve done ‘nids and Orks. “Now we’re out of bad guys so I’ve got no idea what we’re going to do next”.

- Cultists were in, despite not being in the codex as they needed to create new things when they get the opportunity or the game will stagnate.

- For designing Chaos Jes said there are too extremes: the renegades, recent converts and represented by regular marines with spikes on; and the warped, those totally mutated ones. Both are equally valid and he’s hoping to have more warped ones like in Dark Vengeance coming out. For vehicles it will mean more daemon engines on the table.

 Jes had a solo seminar, where I accosted him about his constant use of topknots on minis (he likes the feral yet combat ready look, it allows Eldar to have hair but not be too slicked down, it helps with multi part minis to have long hair as if it isn’t tied up you can’t pose the head, and he thinks they’re cool).
The fallout of this is that I have to send Jes a photo of my hair in a topknot when it is long enough.

 I also talked to him about sculpting female minis, and he said that he dislikes the all to frequent chainmail bikini look and has copped some heat of the muscular Wyches. Regarding Lelith his concept was all about emphasising her athleticism rather than sexualising her with “huge tits… but Juan is a butt man anyway…”

And that’s what I’ve got!