Marshal Loss

Much prefer him in Terminator armour to the Gravis sculpt, looks great.

Delayed in Australia... Hopefully it sells well, I want to see the Falchion in plastic

It's hard to tell how well the game is doing. Anecdotally, some in my area are sticking with 2.0 and others have moved to 3.0, though plenty of people seem to be be working on Saturnine kits. Previously I'd have expected everybody to migrate to the new shiny and I'm a little concerned about the game's long-term future locally. Any responses you get to 'how well is 3.0 doing' online will vary based on where you ask the question, but 3.0 is clearly a polarising edition one way or the other. GW badly bungled the launch. I don't think counting battle reports is a good measure of how well the game is doing. There have never been many HH 'content creators' and HH battle reports have never hauled in masses of views. 40k is an anomaly in that regard among GW's games. Personally I really like 3.0. The core rules generally feel like an improvement over 2.0 and I have thoroughly enjoyed the few games I've played so far. That being said I absolutely hate the army building/detachment system, it's awful, and most factions feel like they've lost a fair amount of flavour.

Looks really cool, though if true I'm not sure I'd have chosen this as a priority to transition into plastic when we already have the Scorpius as a full kit and the Hyperios as a journal add-on.

Wonderful news, keen to get my hands on more heresy from French. Praetorian of Dorn, Slaves to Darkness and Solar War are three of my all-time favourites in the setting. edit: Just noticed: I thought the second journal tactica was Saturnine themed, so perhaps this is a reference to a second dropsite massacre journal (part II) coming around the same time.

Hmm. Pre-coffee takes: Can't say I'm pleased to see no Eldar or CSM, and Mech wouldn't have been my choice for a second Imperial faction. As somebody who's basically played DOW1 and its expansions since release (with a period spent on DOW2, and memory loss where DOW3 should be), it's strange to see e.g. Primaris and Newcrons drag the franchise into the present. Trailer was fine, bit early to judge gameplay but it didn't pump me up. In the pantheon of DOW trailers/cinematics it falls behind 1, 2 & 3 without question in my mind. Happy to see John French behind the story. I've got pretty low expectations for this based on the developer, but it's still exciting to have this and (hopefully) Total War 40k on the horizon. We'll see how things play out.

I came here to write some thoughts about my own first game of 3.0 (and after being able to watch a few at the same event), but this sums it all up really nicely. Thoroughly agree. Overall I really enjoy the core rules, 3.0 is great fun. I still think the legion rules are far less flavourful than what we used to have, but we'll see how the journal system plays out over the coming years. I don't like the army building system. It's bad. In principle, it sounds cool. You take some commanders and they bring some units along like a real force. Lots of dramatic detachment names with strong warhammery vibes, and I really like the incentives to take line officers. But all of the decisions you're forced to make feel more arbitrary than ever and it's just a pain in the ass to work with. List building used to be something that I'd do for fun and now it's something I dread. It's a real pity.

First game done. I was absolutely smashed but won on VPs because my tacticals were too high to know they should be running away. 3-4 units of line units feel mandatory with a trait this good, if we're able to rush them forward to seize objectives the game is basically ours. MVPs though were two units of two graviton rapiers who thoroughly messed up my opponent's ability to move his key vehicles to where they needed to be. I didn't use any legion-specific units except for a squad of Kakophoni who were a useful status inflicting tool but, as (sadly) expected, do very little damage to anything other than themselves. Will give Palatines a run next time.

I don't have high hopes for DOW4 based on the developer/don't have any interest in the tank game, but I trust CA to release a game that is a flawed, fun and possibly frustrating experience at launch but which is eventually hammered into an excellent game after a couple of years of patches. I'm going to need a new computer.

Emperor's Children can do it with the Brotherhood of the Phoenix detachment

I've been surprised how long it's taken people to catch on to just how powerful Stupefied has become. It might well be the best trait in the game. There's a lot of subtle utility as well - e.g. you can use a return fire reaction before choosing to activate it. Love it! Feels very obvious in hindsight that the (garbage) trait we received in 2.0 was effectively the beta version of the 3.0 trait/the 3.0 trait reworked to fit into 2.0. In comparison to e.g. the Hereticus World Eaters who have a similar trait that doesn't work anywhere near as well, we've won the lottery. Regarding the broader ruleset (focusing only on the Hereticus side, as I was only ever going to play the baddies): The unique Hereticus detachment likely isn't going to do anything for EC players unless they were already set on taking Fulgrim Transfigured, but being able to chuck a prime advantage on e.g. a Saturnine Praetor (paragon of battle) could produce a monster of a character. It doesn't offer anywhere near the utility of some other legion detachments though, which sucks for list building, but it's not the end of the world. Hopefully we get some extra detachments down the line that offer more interesting takes on the legion than Fulgrim + super best friends. Our unique units are generally OK. I do like that they're all in different slots. Palatines are the only real standout and look like a lot of fun. A solid unit that does pretty well into most targets and will sometimes get you some VPs. Phoenix Terminators have continued their tradition of being bad for the third edition in a row. They're not particularly adept at killing anything you're going to want them to fight outside of niche scenarios, and while they can be pretty tanky their "we tank while the character wins the combat" tactic isn't as effective in 3.0 as it was in previous editions now that we can't just wipe out a unit via sweep. Kakophoni are a mixed bag and far from the terror they are in the books. I really wish they had 2W because yet again they're more dangerous to themselves than their enemies. Stun (2) triggering on hit saves them though, so I think the unit has some utility as a source of mobile long-ranged status infliction even if they're not going to kill much. Sunkillers got smashed but I was expecting this/HSS in general to take a major hit. I miss all of the augments and associated flavour we lost, but shriekers are still great and in time-honoured EC fashion will be making an appearance on every character who wants to be in melee. Overall, very happy - the trait is so good that we can built fun, fluffy and effective lists without having to lean into skew builds or spam a certain legion specific unit or character. I'll take that over a busted unit or piece of wargear any day. Got my first 3.0 game this weekend so we'll see how pleased Slaanesh is with my degeneracy. I don't have as many status-inflicting weapons in my army as I'd like so that will be the first port of call as I build new options for the edition.

Pleased to see the alternate Saturnine Dreadnought weapons out so soon, I much prefer them (both in looks & rules) to what came in the starter box.

The more I reflect on the importance of statuses, the more excited I get about the revamped Hereticus EC rules. Stupify feels like it is going to have some serious utility in 3.0.

Enjoyed the article. Any thoughts on chainaxes vs chainswords on assault squads?

Pacifist Gal Vorbak wasn't on my 3.0 bingo card