About My Blog

Ave Omnissiah!

Image result for adeptus mechanicus symbol

My blog is primarily my own personal fluff in the Warhammer 40,000 universe regarding the Draconis system such as the Knight House Yato in Ryusei, their Household Militia, the Draconian Defenders, and the Forge World of Draconis IV with its Adeptus Mechanicus priesthood, Cybernetica cohorts and Skitarii legions, and the Titan Legion, Legio Draconis, known as the Dark Dragons.

Featured Post

Retrospective: Imperial Knights

Today, we're going to a Retrospective on...Imperial Knights! I mean, this is primarily an Imperial Knight blog, so obviously if I'm ...

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Ultramar

Oh, looks like Warhammer Community has a new post on War Zone Ultramar. Sorry for being late to the party. I'm busy.

Just so you guys know, I probably will not be able to update my blog tomorrow or Friday because I will be spending about 28 hours in flight. Yeah, I'm returning to Singapore from Minnesota on Thursday morning, way before the Warhammer Community post their daily updates. I've been packing and stuff, and updating my stories (sorry, not Warhammer 40,000 stories, they're stupid, juvenile anime-styled stories that emulate light novels and web novels) so I've been behind. Anyway, expect the next update to be on late Friday night or on Saturday. I apologize for the inconvenience. That said, hardly anybody reads my blog, except maybe Jesse, and all the Tyranids stuff is done, so there shouldn't be a problem.

Ahem...back to Ultramar.

So Ultramar is a sector that contains hundreds of planets and is the jewel of the Imperium. It's one of the few places that can actually be called prosperous or counted as progressive and utopian. Basically a rare paradise within the Imperium or the 41st Millennium in general. Unfortunately, all that is set to change in 8th Edition.



War has come to Ultramar. The Death Guard and their legions of Plague Marines and hordes of Nurglings are poised to invade Ultramar. Already three systems to the galactic north of Ultramar have fallen to Nurgle's forces and turned into the Scourge Stars. With that done, Nurgle proceeds to invade Utramar.



Well, I don't play Ultramarines, but that makes for a good opportunity for my own storyline there. Yay. Anyway, there are 500 worlds in the sub-empire of Ultramar. Awesome.



Uh oh. So the legions of Nurgle, led by the Death Guard, are invading Ultramar. Fortunately, Roboute Guilliman and his Primaris Space Marines have returned to save the day. Yay. That's the premise for Dark Imperium. Sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? So if you're interested, get the Dark Imperium box set soon and wage epic wars between Ultramarines (with Primaris Space Marines) against the nefarious Death Guard!

Wait, so what does that have to do with the forces of the Draconis system?

That's where the Imperial Guard tank regiments of the Draconian Armored Force and the Imperial Knights of the nobles hosues of Draconis III (House Yato, House Uesugi and House Takeda), plus a whole bunch of Adeptus Mechanicus and their escoring maniples of Skitarii, come into play. To aid Lord Commander Guilliman in his war against Traitors and Heretics, the Draconian Fleet has warped in from the direction of the Scourge Stars to retake one of the three systems. Once they succeed and cleanse one of the systems free of taint and disease they will proceed to meet up with the Primarch Guilliman in Ultramar sub-sector for a devastating pincer attack to crush the invading Nurgle legions.

Something like that. I'll wait for more details from 8th Edition and more fluff before I write the story (too busy with writing my stupid web novels for now). But yeah, it'll be about the might of the Draconian military, bolstered by the Leman Russ tanks of the Imperial Guard and spearheaded by the noble Imperial Knights against the diseased tenacity of the Death Guard and legions of Nurgle.

One of the interesting thing is how my Adeptus Mechanicus forces will come into play. I was thinking this will be a good opportunity to distinguish my Adeptus Mechanicus army from others in flavor and style. Unlike most Adeptus Mechanicus...uh, forge worlds, the priesthood of the forge world Draconis IV does not believe that the flesh is weak. The Magos Biologis, or to be more precise, the Divisionis Biologis is among the most massive and influential order in the Forge World of Draconis IV.

As such, they do not view the flesh as weak, but rather as a superior form of machine. This leads to dark research bordering on tech-heresy as the Genetors of Draconis IV often strive to genetically modify organisms in order to augment their abilities in combat. There are rumors that they are attempting to recreate the Primaris Space Marines that Belisarius Cawl created in Mars, but from the lack of presence of such things, it doesn't seem that they have succeeded. Oh well.



Of course, there are several branches of Genetors who wish to experiment on the Tyranids and enslave them to their control much like the Anphelion disaster, but the Great Rift and invasion of Traitor Astartes have interrupted those efforts and the resources of the Divisionis Biologis have been diverted to finding cures and stemming the tides of diseases and plagues the forces of Nurgle bring. They have far more success with that, which is why they are confident enough to accompany the Imperial Knights and Imperial Guard of Draconis III to take back the Scourge Stars from the Death Guard and Nurgle. They have found serums and vaccines that would protect the human soldiers from diseases and they continue to research innoculations against ever mutating strains of Nurgle. Seems like their experiments on the unrivaled mutability of Tyranids have paid off here. Heh.

Anyway, we shall see. It'll be fun to see the Imperial Guard fight alongside enslaved Tyranids one day, but who knows? I mean, we did that in Starcraft where the United Earth Directorate succeeded in enslaving the Overmind to field Zerg forces, so maybe we'll eventually be able to do that in Warhammer 40,000.

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

The facts of Faction

Oh yeah, I just found an interesting tidbit that I thought I should share. Well, we probably all know about it already, but this confirms what we've suspected so far.

Hey Warhammer 40000, can a single detachment (say, a battalion) combine different armys? For example, could a single Imperial battalion contain both Space Marines, Skitari and Sisters?
LikeShow more reactions
Reply
4
3 hrs
Warhammer 40,000 They must simply contain the same keyword. That can be as all-encompassing as "Imperium" or be really specific like "Ultramarines". The more specific you make it, the more army bonuses you will get...

Cool! So in other words, you can build a Battle-forged army from various Factions as long as they are all Imperium! Obviously I doubt you can build a xenos army of Tau and Orks, but for Imperium players, this is great news! That means I can field a combined Skitarii-Imperial Guard army. For example, Skitarii Vanguard as Troops and Leman Russ tanks as Heavy Support! And still have space for Onager Dunecrawlers! It would be great to field a Super-heavy Deatchment of a Stormsword and a couple of Imperial Knights as well!

There's lots of ways you can build it, and it's very flexible. For example, you want Imperial Guard Leman Russ tanks, but you don't want their infantry. Then take a Grey Knights Terminator squad for Infantry! An Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-Priest Dominus as your HQ to repair those tanks! Stuff like that!

If course, the flipside is that I get more bonuses if I field a complete Imperial Guard army as opposed to my Skitarii-Imperial Guard hybrid army, but we shall see. Anyway, I think this is good news and allows for a ton of flexibility yet doesn't get too overpowered because you don't get the bonuses, unlike Formations of the past where you just take whatever Formations and group them together for the various bonuses. This edition is shaping up to be really awesome!

Choosing your army

Warhammer Community has revealed how we can create our army today!

First is the old unbound, which they now call open play. Basically, choose whatever models you want, and tadah! Your army is created! An army of Riptides, or whatever you fancy. Or just Obliterators (even though someone complained about them sucking). It's entirely up to you. Good luck finding an opponent, though.



Most people will try to go for some semblance of balance and we can do that in narrative play. For narrative play, we use Power Levels in the units' datasheets. This allows for quicker addition and subtraction, and you don't need to worry about wargear and all the tiny, weeny bits. Just units, fun and simple.

Then finally you have matched play, where you can use points. That's basically the old bound method where we build legal armies based on Combined Arms Detachments, or Formations or whatever unique Detachments of old. And with these we shall play the old Eternal War or Maelstrom missions (with several new twists) that we're so familiar with. Yeah, the old listbuilding is back, with all the detailed points, wargear and stuff. Warhammer Community has an example of a 1,000-point list.



Apparently it's a Battle-forged Army that uses the Patrol Detachment. And it's 1,000 points. As you can see from the pictures, you have the base cost or model cost, and then the extra wargear and stuff. It's Dru...Dru-what? Drukhari? What the hell is that? Bloody hell, just call them Dark Eldar, Games Workshop. FFS. And no, there's not an acronym for Fantasy Flight Shames.

I don't understand the tactical thing because we of the faithful refuse to analyze the strategies of xenos scum, but you can read it for yourself on the original post. What is interesting and may have an impact on Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus armies is that vehicles are more expensive now in terms of points. Uh oh. They cost more points now! NOOOO!!!!



Oh, and related to the rumor about Detachments that Jesse Sinclair provided the other time (thanks, Jesse!), it seems that the Formations of old have been converted into Detachments. Meaning you can build Battle-forged Armies even based on your favorite units. For example, if you want an armored Imperial Guard army consisting of nothing but Leman Russ tanks, you can do that. If I recall there was one Detachment that requires 1 mandatory HQ and 3 mandatory Heavy Support, and the rest are all optional, like 0-2 Troops, 0-2 Elites, etc. So we can build all Leman Russ tanks lists now! AWESOME! It's a great time to be an Imperial Guard player!

Now I should start selling off my infantry, Chimera and Stormtroopers. Maybe. I don't know.

Anyway, I'll let you guys know, and I'll see what Faction Focus article they have tomorrow as well.

Monday, May 29, 2017

Ultima Founding

Warhammer Community has posted on the Ultima Founding. No, it has nothing to do with Final Fantasy, though that is one hell of a spell. But never mind that...

Not a big Space Marine fan, so I'll sum it up for you. Many Adeptus Astartes Chapters were severely depleted or destroyed after the events of the Gathering Storm. So what do we do? Reinforce them with bigger and better Space Marines in the form of Primaris Space Marines. So these guys come as reinforcements to the beleaguered Chapters and fight Chaos. Of course, Roboute Guilliman created a bunch of new Chapters consisting solely of Primaris Space Marines just so Warhammer 40,000 fans can field entire armies of just these guys on the tabletop. And money for Games Workshop.

Their genetic lineage comes from the First Founding. So all nine Loyalist Legions have their own Primaris Space Marines. They have 3 additional organs and larger size (uh, what?) so that somehow makes them tougher and harder to kill. Cool...I guess?

Anyway, many of these new Chapters are assigned new home worlds near the Great Rift. Some even reclaim the empty Fortress Monasteries of annihilated Chapters. Cool. So you have an excuse to pit them against Chaos, Traitors, Daemons and xenos enemies.



Uh, I'll pass on creating my own Space Marine Chapter. I have my own Imperial Guard regiment, Imperial Knight House and Adeptus Mechanicus Forge World to manage. So...yeah, I'll pass on that.



I'll let you guys know more when I get more news.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Faction Focus: Genestealer Cults

Well, this one is for Jesse Sinclair! Here's your Faction, Genestealer Cults!



We already know that Genestealer Cults belong to the Tyranids, but they're different in that they are specifically Genestealer Cults while the other "Faction" is specifically Hive Fleet.



So what's the difference between Hive Fleet and Genestealer Cults, and why would you choose the latter over the former, especially after seeing all the awesome new rules for Hive Fleet Tyranids in last week's article?

For starters, they still have Cult Ambush, which allows you to move them onto the table from reserves in a few different ways. They can Move, Shoot and Charge even when you put them onto the table from reserves, which is a very powerful ability.



That's one example of a Genestealer Cultist up there. Looks pretty strong, eh? With S5 and AP -2 for his power pick. That's powerful.

Taking Genestealers in Genestealer Cult would give them a different way to play and make them more flexible, not just because of Cult Ambush but because if you take a Patriarch with them, they basically become Fearless. Oh, and also grants them melee and other bonuses. He also has Unquestioning Loyalty, which is basically a Look Out, Sir! on a 4+ where a minion jumps in to take a bullet meant for him. Heh.



That's not all. They also have the Mass Hynopsis psychic power, which renders them unable to fire Overwatch, makes them strike last even if they charged and gives them -1 to hit (I'm assuming for melee). This makes Genestealer Cultists and Genestealers even more deadly in combat. Woohoo! Ouch, doesnt that make my flamers and wall of deaths useless?

Oh, and you can apparently take one Imperial Guard Detachment for each Genestealer Cults Detachment in your Battle-forged army. Wait, what? How is that fair?!



But if you don't want to steal our Leman Russ tanks, you have your own awesome vehicles like the Goliath Rockgrinder.



It gets a Clearance Incinerator which is...I think torrent? And a Cache of Demolition Charges which is 6" range and can only be hurled by an embarked unit to deal D6 shots at Strength 8, AP -3 and D3 Damage per hit. And then you have the Drilldozer for melee for 6+ D3 Strength 8 attacks with AP -2 and D3 Damage per hit. That sounds nasty, all right.

Well, I'll let you guys know when we have more news!

Alan Bligh

Sad news from Warhammer Community. Alan Bligh has passed on.



He was a main writer for the Horus Heresy games in Forge World. I offer all his friends and family condolences.

Friday, May 26, 2017

More Primaris Space Marines

Uh...well, Warhammer Community is back with more Primaris Space Marines like the Captain in Gravis armor and the Inceptors.



Not going to say much because this obviously is not a Space Marines blog, but yeah. Gravis armor provides an increase to toughness. And the Captain has 6 Wounds, making him a Monstrous Creature in 7th Edition. He costs a hefty 7 power rating though.



And you can have any friendly Space Marine models re-roll to hot rolls of 1. Yay. He also gets a 4++ invulnerable save. Cool.



And then you have the Inceptors who ran away from Chris Nolan's movie, Inception. Jokes aside, they have increased Toughness thanks to the Gravis armor, and they can fly.



That's all for today, it seems. I have no idea what happens tomorrow. We'll probably get Genestealer Cults as a Faction Focus, and if that happens I'll let Jesse know.

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Man with a Mission

Warhamer Community has accomplished their mission to post about missions!

First up we have Only War, the most basic mission of Warhammer 40,000. Obviously you're meant to play this between two armies of similar power levels. If you have the lower power level, you can be the underdog! It brings benefits with it.



There are more mission stuff like Annihilation, Death or Glory, and Hold at All Costs. Cool.

There are 6 mission types for Narrative: Meat Grinder, Ambush, Patrol, Blitz, Sabotage and Rescue. All sound very cool, and all have their specific Stratagems. Nice. For example they show Stratagems for Sabotage.



Matched Play is back, and as always it's in the form of 6 Eternal War and 6 Maelstrom of War missions. Not much change in the numbers, but it seems there are a few tweaks here and there. We have 6 deployment maps instead of 3!



Maelstrom of War have completely different Objectives now, and Objectives seem to have been re-done from the ground up for 8th Edition. Plus we can use specific Stratagems for Maelstrom of War missions.



Sounds very...tactical.

Tomorrow we have more news on Primaris Space Marines...NOOO!!!! Screw the Space Marines! We want news on other things! I mean, why not show stats for the Death Guard?!

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Forge World Datasheet

I'm not going to say much since Forge World really isn't my fancy and I can't afford much of it other than three sets of Vendetta Conversion kits, but here's a Forge World datasheet from Warhammer Community.

As I reported the other day, Forge World will release datasheets for their Space Marine and Chaos Forge World models first, on the same day as the official 8th Edition release. Without further ado, here's an example of a datasheet.



That's scary. For lesser points, this thing is way better than my Imperial Knight. I'm kind of jealous. Sigh. This Leviathan has better WS and BS, same Strength and Toughness, and an even better Armor save, for much less points. How is this fair?!

Oh, and it looks like Orks walkers are going to be BEAST in this Edition. Kind of fitting, since the Beast Arises. Heh.



Soon the Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus will get their own Forge World datasheets! Oh, and I'm wondering if Titans will get datasheets too. I wonder how the Warlord, Reaver and Warhound Titans will look like in 8th Edition!

Stay tuned for missions and objectives tomorrow!

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Faction Focus: Death Guard

Wait, what? There's a Faction Focus on Death Guard? This soon?! Wow! AWESOME! They had better do a Faction Focus on the Thousand Sons too, just to be fair...



Seems like Death Guard is still the same tough, resilient but slow, shambling Zombie...ahem, Plague Marines that we all know and love. And yeah, they seem to Feel No Pain. Plus Poison weapons. Cool.



Okay, yeah...that looks horrific and ugly. Oh boy...

How does Death Guard play in the new edition? First, you can take Plague Marines as Troops, like how you take Rubric Marines as Troops for the Thousand Sons. They all get Disgustingly Resilient, which is basically Feel No Pain. Thanks to Instant Death being gone this Edition, even if you get hit with high strength weapons now, it just means you need to make multiple Disgustingly Resilient rolls. I mean, high strength weapons deal more than 1 Damage now.



Plague Marines are still Toughness 5. That's tough! Plague knives allow you to re-roll wound rolls of 1s in close combat. And they carry a blight launcher, which is an Assault 2, Strength 6, AP -2 that deals D3 Damage at 24" range. Yeah, and these guys are Troops. Uh oh.

Then you have the Poxwalkers, which are basically Death Guard Tzaangors. They are cheap, and they also have Disgustingly Resilient. Disgusting. Looks like they are Fearless too. My goodness, they are real zombies. I mean, zombies are Fearless, but they also have the rule Curse of the Walking Pox, which allows you to add a new Poxwalker to the unit every time they slay an enemy infantry model. Bloody hell, that's scary. Keep them away from my Guardsmen! To make matters worse, if you bring Typhus, he increases their Strength and Toughness by 1 if he's right next to them!



Oh boy...just oh boy.

The Death Guard also have a psychic Nurgle power called Miasma of Pestilence, which allows the blessed (?) unit to subtract 1 from To Hit rolls of enemy units firing at it. What the hell, isn't that unfair? My Imperial Guard army stands no chance against these guys.

I'm sick of hearing Death Guard already...ugh. Death Guard will be the death of me.

Anyway, we have Orks on Thursday, but I doubt I'll be covering that because I'm not a fan of Orks. Unless they talk about Stompas, Deff Dreads, Morkanauts, Gorkanauts and Killa Klans. Maybe. I don't know. Till next time!

Kingsblade

Kingsblade by Andy Clark is awesome. That's all you need to know. Seriously. Buy it now, especially if you're a fan of Imperial Knights. It's a MUST BUY for all Imperial Knights fans and players who are interested in the fluff. It's even better than Graham McNeill's Knights of the Imperium. Seriously.



What are you waiting for? Go to Black Library and order it now. That's an order.

Okay, never mind. You're here for a book review, so let me take it more seriously. First up, Kingsblade provides a very detailed and intensive look into how Imperial Knights work. You have the entire hierarchy, the heralds, the High King, the various Houses and the nobles. They work as actual Knights, with the pilots being addressed as Sire and Lady. How cool is that? They show how the politics work. Unlike Knights of the Imperium, Kingsblade focuses less on the consorts, or the Knights' wives. There are still politics, but it has more to do with the High King and royalty in garnering loyalty from the other Houses.

The protagonist is Danial Tan Draconis. Yeah, it's a gigantic coincidence that Danial is a Knight of House Draconis, when my own Imperial Knights are from the Draconis system, but they're of House Yato instead of House Draconis. Anyway, there are 5 Knightly Houses of Adrastapol. You have House Draconis, which is where the High King Tolwyn Tan Draconis belongs to. Danial is the Kingsward and his son, basically heir to the throne. Then there's his sister Jennika, who is an awesome Knight, more awesome than Solaria (hah! Pathetic) in Dawn of War 3. The Herald Markos serves as the old guy with gigantic balls, nerves of steel and vast experience. You know, the seasoned veteran who knows more about war than everyone else. I'll mention Suset Dar Draconis, who funnily enough is hinted as Danial's love interest. Although they haven't officially gotten together at the end, it's hinted that Danial will take her as his Queen eventually. I'll probably do that if I write about them, but hey, House Yato has their own story to tell.

Then you have House Chimaeros, who is led by Viscount Gerraint Tan Chimaeros. Here we have Danial's best friend, who is the second main character. Luk Tan Chimaeros. He is Gerraint and Alicia's son. Alicia is Gerraint's wife, obviously. Or consort, because they are Knights.

There's House Wyvorn, but nobody cares about them. And then there's House Pegasson and House Minotos. Both of which are very cool. These five Houses are located on the world, Adrastapol, which is located in the Majestis System. The High King apparently rules over this system much like how Roboute Guilliman rules over the 500 worlds in Ultramar System. Don't forget about their Imperial Guard allies!

We have the Cadians, which are as awesome as always. Following the Cadians are the Mubraxis and Tanhollis regiments. Tanhollis isn't mentioned muched, but Mubraxis is pretty cool because of their leader, the Mubraxian Sheik Halna'sir, who basically did several awesome things in this story. I won't spoil it for you, but he's basically the guy who pulls the Imperial Guard regiments together and contributed greatly to the Imperial victory (yeah, the Imperium wins this one, sorry for the spoiler, but what do you expect?). The Cadians are led by Major Kovash, and Cadians being Cadians, they supported the Knights of Adrastapol with honor, duty and committment. Yay!

In addition to the Imperial Guard, we have Commander Korgh who is in charge of the Planetary Defense Force of Donatos, which is the world the Imperial Knights and Imperial Guard have come to take back from the Traitors who fell to Chaos. Korgh actually turns out to be a likeable fellow that you'll come to root for. That's just how great this book is. All the characters in here, you'll just come to like them. Except the Word Bearers, of course.

Ah, yes. Now we come to the real enemy. The Imperial forces find themselves at war with the Word Bearers, led by the evil Varakh'Lorr...who, quite frankly, is an asshole. Anyway, the basic premise of the story is that the Imperial military forces fight the Word Bearers and Cultists and Traitor Donatians, but suffer a massive setback through twists and turns. I mean, it'll be boring if the Knights of Adrastapol just smash through the Traitor's forces and win right at the beginning of the book. Danial finds himself in a position of leadership, Luk finds his loyalties tested, a Freeblade is born, awesome battles between Knights, as well as between Knights and Daemon Engines are abound! The Knights are not invincible, and they shouldn't be, but they are depicted as powerful and awe-inspiring, as they should be. Andy Clark does the Imperial Knights justice with this narrative, weaving a spellbinding plot with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing, and with great, lovable characters that you can relate to - even if they pilot a titanic bipedal machine of war - and root for.

As I said, this book isn't a buy. No, it's a must buy. You'll never regret reading it. You'll love it. I guarantee it. If you don't...well, I guess you aren't a fan of Imperial Knights, so if colossal bipedal mechs aren't your thing, you might not find this to your liking. However, I daresay that even if you don't like giant robots or mechs, you'll still come to love the characters, the politicking, the twists and turns, and the epic battles and strategies that permeate the tale's tapestry.

Knights of Adrastapol! We march!

Sorry, I mean Knights of Draconis! We march! House Yato, House Uesugi and House Takeda shall saddle forth to war alongside our Knightly brothers! And Imperial Guard allies!

Forging 8th Edition for Forge World

If any of you use Forge World stuff, like...Vendetta conversion kit for your Valkyries, then you'll be pleased to know that Forge World is on top of the changes to 8th Edition!



Warhammer Community has released a post assuring us how Forge World can still be used in 8th Edition.

Long story short, we'll get Forge World Indexes similar to the Imperium, Chaos and Xenos Indexes we're getting for Citadel Miniatures, and the first 2 books - Adeptus Astartes and Chaos - will be available for pre-prder in June 3rd 2017 as well.



Every other Faction, including Imperial Guard, will all have their respective Indexes released before the end of June, so you don't have to wait long. Hip, hip, hooray!Every model released by Forge World will definitely receive its own datasheet, so we don't have to worry. Cool!



There will be more news regarding Horus Heresy during the weekend Warhammer Festival. So stay tuned for more!

8th Edition release date announced!

Yes, you've got that right! Warhammer Community, Warhammer TV and the official Warhammer 40,000 Facebook page has just announced the date of release for 8th Edition!

Pre-orders - June 3rd, 2017

Official Release Date: June 17th, 2017

Mark these dates on your calendar, it won't be too long now!

They even have a starter set that features the Ultramarines against the Death Guard! Nice. This starter set is called the Dark Imperium, and it has two armies - Ultramarines and Death Guard - and a hardcover rulebook, dice and range rulers.

Apparently this isn't the only startup. According to Warhammer Community, the launch lineup for the new edition is the most extensive they had ever seen. So it's safe to say that we should be getting more starter sets, which hopefully features more Factions. An Imperial Guard starter set would be nice, for starters.

Ah, my mistake. These aren't just Ultramarines. They are Primaris Space Marines. Dark Imperium includes the Intercessor squad we already read about. But there's more! Apparently they have Hellblasters, who use plasma weapons, and Inceptors with twin assault bolters (must be a Fast Attack choice, I bet).



Yeah, you get 2 Intercessor squads, 1 Hellblaster squad and 1 Inceptor squad (of 3 dudes). Then you have Primaris Lieutenants leading these guys (2 of them, apparently), plus a Primaris Ancient carrying a banner and a Primaris Captain in Gravis armor. What does Gravis armor do? I have no idea.



Uh...cool? But that's not all! We get Death Guard as well! Just look at what the Death Guard has to offer!

First we have a unit of 7 Plague Marines. Awesome. Why are they as big as the new Primaris Space Marines? Apparently they are "swollen with the raw power of decay." Uh...okay. We also have Poxwalkers, which I bet is the Cultist/Mutant/common Troops counterpart of the Thousand Sons' Tzaangors. And then we have a new Daemon Engine, the Foetid Bloat-drone! Uh, what does it do? I have no idea. It floats and "hunts its prey with a malign intelligence." That's all I got out of it. It looks like a freaking gunship, though, so awesome. Just awesome.



Leading the Death Guard are a bunch of ancient Traitor Legionnaires, which includes the Lord of Contagion, who's clad in Cataphractii Terminator armor and has...an axe to grind with the Loyalists. Heh. I know you're sick of my jokes, but this is the Death Guard after all. Then we have the Noxious Blightbringer, who instead of carrying a banner hauls around a gigantic cursed plague bell instead. Apparently it tolls with the death knell of his enemies. I guess the bell is exacting a toll on him? Lastly you have the Malignant Plaguecaster, Nurgle's version of a Sorcerer (these things have nothing on the Thousand Sons and real Sorcerers!). Cool.



Oh yeah, and you'll find the complete set of datasheets for Primaris Space Marines and Death Guard in two separate booklets. Cool. There's also background fluff for the plague wars ragining inside the Ultramar system and also for the two forces. Awesome!



They also have a 280-page hardback rulebook for the 8th Edition of Warhammer 40,000. Huh. It'll include many pretty major advancements for each Faction in the story. Yay.

Well, this book contains all the rules, including the core rules, missions, guidelines for narrative, open play and matched, advanced rules for war zones, Cities of Death, Planetstrike, Stronghold Assault and Death from the Skies.



Can you say awesome again? ...well, I say that but I won't be getting it because I already have my armies. I just need the damned rulebook.



Oh yeah, the core rules for Warhammer 40,000 will be free! We can download it from the official Games Workshop website and Warhammer 40,000 website through the Battle Primer PDF on June 17th, 2017. That's games-workshop.com and warhammer40000.com for you. I'll update you guys with the link and stuff on the day itself. Hip, hip hooray!

Me, I'll just get the full rulebook for the sole reason of reading the fluff. Yup. And speaking of buying stuff, there's more to buy. The Faction Indexes.



We have 2 books for the Imperium. Yay. 1 book for Chaos. Hah! And 2 books for the Xenos. KILL THEM WITH FIRE. Ahem...anyway, these books will contain all the rules you need to play your Imperium armies...I mean, whatever Faction you use. It'll have all the rules for each Citadel model. If we want to start gaming with our existing armies, we just need 1 Rulebook and whichever Index book that has their datasheets, and we can play immediately. Yay. I hope Imperial Guard is bound together with the Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Knights Factions, that will make it a lot easier for me to ally them together. Yay.



Uh...apparently everyone will have their own dedicated Codex in the future? What's with that? Does this render these Indexes obsolete?

That's not all, though. We also have gaming accessories...gosh, this typing and reporting is making me tired. New Tactical Objective cards, Command Dice, Wound Trackers (will make things easier for my Leman Russ tanks and Imperial Knights), a flexible Combat Gauge (just how flexible?) and Objective Markers...because why the hell not? Ugh. I'm not buying into this. Anyway, they do look cool, with a mini-supply drop pod and xenos bio-containment tank (I'm looking at you, Tyranids).



And soon we will have a plethora of books released by Black Library regarding the events after the Gathering Storm! Whoohoo! First off we have Dark Imperium by Guy Haley, the author of Baneblade, Shadowsword and Stormlord! Nice! It's about Roboute Guilliman leading his new Primaris Space Marines against the Death Guard after the Rise of the Primarch in the Gathering Storm thing.



Awesome! All right, Draconians! From the humble Imperial Guardsmen to the noble Knights of Houses Yato, Uesugi and Takeda! We shall march forth and reclaim the galaxy under Mankind's rule! Oh yeah, and we have the support of the Mechanicus priesthood from the forge world Draconis IV. We shall aid Lord Commander Guilliman in his Indomitus Crusade and CRUSH the Traitors! FOR THE EMPEROR!



I'll let you guys know when more news regarding Warhammer 40,000 is released, as Warhammer Community isn't quite done with their releases yet! More aspects of 8th Edition, and more Faction Focus articles will be coming up soon! Keep in mind I'm not covering all the Factions, just the ones that interest me.

For the Emperor!