N1SB

Brothers, just checking in. Would a hard counter to Stupified be units with the Vanguard (X) special rule? Not a deal breaker, just something we have to plan against. Still need to wipe out the entire unit, though, I think.

It's 1 month since Brother Craig shared the Wargamer article on White Dwarf's long-time and now former editor Lyle Lowery. Not sure if you saw this recent news, and it probably hit those that grew up in England, but it's about WH Smith, the long-time book/magazine store on high streets and train stations: https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/uks-wh-smith-cuts-profit-forecast-after-accounting-blunder-shares-sink-2025-08-21/ The news is about an accounting error hitting its stock price...but the story is NEITHER about the accountancy error NOR the stock price. The story is what YOU guys said about the decline in print media. White Dwarf is part of this...but you see the situation Brother Lyle was in. To our non-UK Fraters et Sororitas. WH Smith was so ubiquitous I practically grew up in them. I could walk to the Warhammer Store, but on my way home from school was a WH Smith (at Victoria Station for me, big one). That'd be the 1st place I'd see the latest White Dwarf, but also Discworld novels (until the Horus Heresy, this was the biggest series I followed), even UK versions of US comics (they'd reprint them in a bigger, cheaper format, closer to how I read Judge Dredd omg it was awesome being a kid in the '90s). Before we had mobile phones, we'd meet up at a train station, the de facto place would be in the WH Smith there so we can browse books and comics while waiting for friends to arrive. Just back in March THIS year, WH Smith spun off a core part of its business, its high street shops. Remember, Games Workshop were high street shops, they followed similar business models. Those are now TG Jones. WH Smith was focusing on their, well, train station and airport venues, where they don't just sell books and magazines anymore, they're like supermarkets with some books in. This cracked me up: "At WHSmith, our purpose is simple: to make every one of life's journeys better." Having something to read that's not a screen is pretty good for a plane ride, but this "life's journeys" is just too rich. I do say things like GW isn't a miniatures company, it's a Hobby company, but not "life's journeys more grimdark." And WH Smith WAS valuable ad space for GW; White Dwarfs were like banner ads in the modeling/comics section. WH Smith is also following this trend with UK companies, Made in the UK, Sold in the U.S. Their biggest...practically only...growth area was in their North America division, ~£400 mil revenue (GW's worldwide revenue was ~£600 mil on this very good year). The accounting error was in North America. After their March sell-off of their old core business, this issue really hit at the heart of WH Smith's strategy. That's absolutely why there's been this stark market reaction, probably the biggest drop in share value in recent history, but it's NOT an Enron. Edit - how much was the accounting error? Only ~£30 million, so less than 10% of JUST the North American division. And it's not missing money; it was just counted too EARLY. This is also a great example of different reporting cultures. Having worked at a UK investment bank, they're very, very high level of accuracy. Nothing wrong with U.S. companies, but Wall Street was always more maverick than The City, and ever since the dot-com era, they're a lot more loosey-goosey because tech can get so fuzzy. But the UK, this is where the old stereotypes work in their favour, they're professionals in well-tailored but never flashy dark suits, established in 1890 types. You'll hear about the record drop in share price, just keep in mind the above, for perspective. GW operates in that environment. If you ever saw a picture of their CEO...not James Workshop, the real one...he is THE serious man in a dark suit. It's like in 40k if a Balance Update hit EXACTLY your Deathstar combination of units, HQs, strategems. There are so many parallels between this story about White Dwarf and WH Smith, I thought it's worth logging in. This is not a White Dwarf did anything bad story at all. This is a Metawatch story. You're right, I think. It's not "life's journeys better", but it's like White Dwarf isn't a magazine product, it's a Hobby product. You see the difference, yeah? A Warhammer miniature isn't an incomplete, unpainted plastic toy, it's a luxury good ahahaha. Really worth keeping in mind, because what else sold in WH Smiths aside from White Dwarf? Black Library novels, right.

This is a great point. It was how they kinda weaved a retcon in there, which was very clever. 1st ed, an Index Astartes Ultramarine article, introducing Marneus Calgar, there was this half-Eldar Librarian of the Ultramarines, who was said to have come from the Dark Angels. Like they could transfer between Chapters. This was early stuff, I really should go back and look at that. But his name was Illiyan Nastase, a memorable name. (Illiyan Natase in the top right corner, he used to hold a book, too) Recently, in the Dark Imperium and Dawn of Fire novels, the returned Primarch Roboute Guilliman introduces this Aeldari emissary sent by his old sometime ally, Eldrad Ulthran the Ulthwé Farseer. Not a Librarian, not a Space Marine, just an Eldar psychic advisor. He had a memorable name: Illiyanne Natase. Strangely unlikeable despite being a diplomat. Not really important in his own right, but shows Guilliman's style of leadership in a few key scenes. Why was this interesting? It shows the limits that GW set, like a marker that shows when something's too far. There was no Half-Eldar Ultramarine, BUT there is an Aeldari psychic emissary in Guilliman's court. Not a former Dark Angel, but wearing the dark robes of Ulthwé. They heard the same name, but spelt different. It's like in-universe, there were rumours of some Eldar serving the Ultramarines and the 1st ed article was simply misunderstood gossip. This might help you in whatever project you're working on. People in the Imperium call something a half-breed, but is it such? Leave it open-ended. When I was a kid, I spoke with Andy Chambers once, he was very nice and patient with me, but he told me what Rick Priestley told him, "Don't tie up loose ends." It's supposed to be open ended. You just have to imply. But I'm still thinking if you want to do something crazy, it'd be an abandoned Dark Eldar slavebreeding experiment. Indeed, Ork Genestealer Hybrids were a thing, I had a model, and "I don't really know how Necrons work" IS the correct answer. NO ONE knows how Necrons work. I dunno, I don't think so, but it's an interesting point to ponder.

You're right, thanks for the correction, I got confused because I use Iron Hands and I use my HQ for the Iron-clad extra Dreadnought, which is different, it doesn't count as an Auxiliary, it's just an Iron Hands thing. I'll amend my post for that.

For the Space Marines Combat Patrol Force Box, why this mix? I totally hear you, so this isn't to contradict, but I JUST went through this exercise (thanks to Brother Shard of Magnus). The piece of that jigsaw puzzle is the Heavy Weapons upgrade, yeah? 10 Heavy Bolters and/or 10 Missile Launchers. You have 10 Marines in a TacSquad in the Rhino, they're rushing ahead. You got 10 Marines or so on your own home Objective, they have the Heavy Weapons of your choice. It uses the Prime Advantage mechanic. The 1st HQ AND the 1st Troops you take both offer it. The HQ one can unlock an extra War Engine slot for Leviathan, while the Troops one can unlock the Heavy Support Squad WITHOUT taking an extra Auxiliary. You know the rules, but it happens I'm leaning towards this. Edit - I'll use both the Logistical Benefit prime advantage and the funky Iron Hands Iron-clad rules that gives an extra Dreadnought, so mine is a special case. Now I'm not sure how all this fits together for other Legions tbh. It just happened this Combat Force looked so much like mine, I thought it made sense at the time. (I'm opting for Plasmaguns I'm going to convert myself with Mechanicum bits, but same difference.) All that said, I agree, 20 Marines + 2 Rhinos, best bundle. And that might be why, because then who'd buy single boxes? You might've explained a detail that's been bugging me from GW's financial reports, the "write downs": (Excerpted from the Half-Year Report about 7 months ago, "our write downs of the stock in our warehouses...") What's a write down? It's not a write off, which is something you might've heard of in office jargon. It's when goods drop in price, and the example used in business classes is usually products past the Best Before date. The example I use is graphics cards, like for my fellow Techpriests building their own gaming PC rigs. The highest end GPUs go for like US$1000 to $3000, but wait a couple of months, they fall to $300 to $500. It's the exact same card, it's not falling apart or expired fruit, but they just made something better, and that becomes the new highest priced item. That same GPU that sold for $1000 to $3000 and now sells for $300 to $500 got written down. So I used to think it was that Imperium Magazine. But these Combat Patrol Force boxes is exactly a typical write down. And more importantly, I think none of this should be seen as a problem. For the manufacturing team, it delivered record volumes, that'd be like me complaining "I've been painting TOO much, I cleared my Pile of Shame, whatever am I supposed to do now?" For GW, it might have seen the initial success of HH 2.0 and thought that was a sales trend, so they kept sending them out, to avoid ppl accusing them of FOMO; when it turns out that wasn't the case, they repackage it into a bundle. Even for shareholders for whom GW maximises value, GW tried not to leave money on the table, now they're adjusting to the situation, because optimisation IS maximisation. And MOST importantly, for us Hobbyists, now WE get that write down, as a discount. GW famously never offers a discount in the same way there are no wolves on Fenris. These bundles ARE their way of discounting, so is the Free Mini of the Month, which is a 100% discount. You may see this as a marketing initiative, Try Before You Buy...not the way I use it. I just get free AoS minis that I'll never buy an AoS army for...but I'll use them for D&D bwahahaha, freeloading ho! It's like for once the free market is (largely) working as intended. I know, I know, it's so rare it looks out of place, but it's a good thing.

There MIGHT be one, and I'm double-checking it. You know him. It's Typhus, or Typhon before the Heresy, of the Death Guard. He carried the epithet/nickname of "the Half-breed", in fact iirc people back on Barbarus would call him that until Mortarion told them to stop. Their home planet was ruled by this nobility referred to as the "Overlords", one of whom raised Mortarion. Typhon was said to be the product of another Overlord and a human, his mother. The difference was so stark that the human population killed his mother for consorting with an Overlord. These Overlords were pretty inhuman, but I'm not 100% sure if they're xenos. The best information we have on them is from The Buried Dagger 30k novel. Barbarus was a toxic planet, the whole atmosphere was pretty poisonous, with only the lower altitudes survivable for humans and it only got more dangerous the higher you go. The Overlords lived in ancient castles on mountaintops because they were immune, to show how different they were. How bad was it? Even Mortarion, the Primarch, couldn't survive for long up there. He lived at the foothills in this like hut. He had to design this special steampunk armour powered by his own arm and leg movements to pump this air filtration system. And he famous for being one of the most resilient of the Primarchs. But that in itself isn't definitive, and there are other possibilities to explain the above. It's all ambiguous. The book never quite explains what the Overlords are. They could have been xenos native to Barbaros and conquered human settlers that had landed there. Or Abhumans uniquely adapted to the planet...but why only them and not others? Maybe a group that arrived millennia earlier, so had time to adapt? Or so specifically genetically engineered to be immune to Barbarus's atmosphere. It's possible an elite group of humans invented an airborne poison that they also made a cure for only themselves, then released that toxin onto the planet to subjugate the rest of the planet. It's also pretty openly implied Barbarus was under the influence of Nurgle, so they could have been human cultists that made a daemonic pact for this immunity. The Overlords had access to what seemed like magic or sorcery...but that might also be because they're strongly psychic xenos...from whom Typhon inherited the psychic abilities he was famous for in his infamously anti-psyker Legion. Any of those possibilities, xenos, genetically modified (Ab)humans, Chaos cultists OR a combination of any of them could be true. But Typhon, who was still a child when he met Mortarion, was believed to be a "half-breed", it was just accepted in the 30k era. Edit - Checked The Buried Dagger earlier. Mortarion's adoptive Overlord father was named Necare, and was described as "nightmarish and alien. If his kind shared any kinship with humans, that history has been seared away and forgotten." This is deliberately open-ended, but weirdly, re-reading those Barbarus passages, I kept thinking of Dark Eldar personally. Just adding this as follow-through since I mentioned it.

I was reading you guys and I love how you found the meta of...I dunno...the Purple Tide, so early on. Honestly, would an optimised list look something like: Some Commanders Named Characters Some good close combat guys to join Line Troops Line Troops Tactical Squads Despoiler Squads for the forward objective Transports Rhinos just to Rhino Rush Maybe a Drop Pod or 2 for the forward objective We're going to have find a speedpainting method for all these guys, but it's just too perfect aaaah that was unintentional, sorry. I mean, this could be an allied detachment to go with most armies, like the Emperor's Children are the GO_TO objective guys. In Saturnine during the Siege of Terra the assault lead by Fulgrim was basically this. The idea was the Emperor's Children did everything in excess, including taking excessive casualties to capture just 1 portion of the wall. But it's like, this is why, they win this way.

You totally pointed me towards the right direction, you solved like all the problems I can think of, thanks for that. I TOTALLY forgot that separate prime advantage role for Troops. I'm looking at the little spikey ring that is the prime advantage icon like an idiot, "oh, spikey, that must be a Chaos thing." I was so fixated on the Dreadnought/Iron-clas prime advantage that I had overlooked this. So 1st option is to take 1 squad, my 1st TacSquad, leaning towards that Combat Veterans thingy to give them more staying power for Morale checks and wotnot maybe. I just checked and Iron-clad DOES use the Command Battlefield Role, freeing up the Troops prime advantage for that Logistical Benefit. I looked at the options available and found I could do a 5-man Special Weapons Squad ("Tactical Support" now) with Plasma guns (costed like Heavy Bolters/Flamers). Same difference. This 2nd option just adds a bit more flavour for a unit that should be fine guarding the home objective. I'm spamming Dreads; if a 5-man unit is under threat, it's not their fault, it'd be mine. Moreover, I can get all the Infantry set up with 1 box of Mk IIIs and converting my own Mortificator and Plasma Gunners with some AdMech bitz. I did consider converting some Medusan Immortals, but from past experience, I just really like having some min-sized squad house-sitting a home objective. What you said about the Troops prime advantage, specifically with Logistical Benefit, freed up a lot of options for me. Great stuff. You're also right, these are skewed, gimmick lists, aren't they? We really are playing with famous characters in Challenges and my Legion's ability to make a Leviathan Champion...like they know I'm the guy to go for that. It's almost like a theoretical list, isn't it? My peoples are already referring to him as that sumo wrestler in MMA.

Yesss...as of the Nachmund Gauntlet Crusade Campaign, even named Epic Characters have upgrades nowadays, but thanks for checking in! You're our resident Crusade expert on B&C. This change from previously is significant because you have things like...y'know...C'TAN that can get further upgrades. Upgrades can be force multipliers, so when you have something like upgrades on a C'tan, which I totally took advantage of with the Transcendant C'tan, you're multiplying a star god. Man, did I pick a winning horse with Necrons this edition. 9th was supposed to be their time in the sun, but it's like the sun never set. I do think it's because they're a natural foil to both the Imperium and the Traitor Legions, so they're like Always Relevant. I don't even like them that much personally. Just fast to paint.

Here is a 1,000 points list with 4 Dreadnoughts, using the Iron Hands' Iron-clad prime advantage rule and a Mortificator. The Iron-clad rule gives 1 Dreadnought slot, while the Mortificator from the Legacies of AoD PDF gives 3 (pasted below): The list is very barebones of a Mortificator, 3 Contemptors, 1 Leviathan (to be the Iron-clad), 2 Tactical Squads: My thought was the Mortificator will join the TacSquad with Melta bombs to follow the Dreads to provide Battlesmith repair checks and sometimes shoot something. The other Tactical Squad will probably stay on a back objective and provide covering fire with Fury of the Legion. The Leviathan will be the Iron-clad Champion and Challenge anyone. For changing the list, I think the Mortificator and the 4 Dreads are pretty much must-takes, they're the point of the list. I have about 200 points leftover, which just happened to be enough for 2 TacSquads, but I'm not wed to them. It's just due to how the Force Org Chart is organised, I couldn't take a Devastator Squad without more HQ tax. (I did even consider having a Despoiler Squad instead for the Mortificator to join, but I got like 4 close combat Dreads, what're they gonna do?) But honestly, not sure what to do with the 200 points with how army list-building works in HH 3.0, open to ideas. Also prolly will take Mk III armour.

That's me! So I got this 1,000 point Triple C'tan Crusade list I made during 10th ed launch's Call To Arms on B&C. The middle AoS mini is for the Transcendant C'tan; she's kept at the store so I don't have to transport her to & fro. HOWEVER, my 10 Necron Warriors, converted Royal Warden (I call him my Necron UNDERlord), the Deceiver AND Nightbringer fit neatly in one of them GW black boxes, no problem. When the leaked Nightbringer image showed up in our Warhammer Store WhatsApp, I literally asked, "How do I 带 this 出街 ?" It literally translates to "how do I take this outside/onto the streets," and is pronounced "how do I dai this chut gai," which rhymes all over the place and sounds like a guy who can't really speak English trying REALLY HARD to ask GW what to do with this mini, 'cos srsly. Immediately our Warhammer Store manager replied me (in spoiler below): You guys see what I have to deal with around here.

Following up after watching my 1st HH 3.0 game, thx to my friends LoyAllen (totally not fAllen) and Vega. I didn't realise the Legacies of the Age of Darkness PDF was out, turns out Rules As Written prevents everything except the Iron Hands Duelists, of which the Iron Hands Leviathan using the Iron Clad Prime Advantage is pretty much the obvious/optimal option. I'm very sorry about this.

────────────────────────────────────────────── KILL TEAM DATA CARD – NECRONS Fragment of C'tan of the Nightbringer ────────────────────────────────────────────── WEAPONS ────────────────────────────────────────────── | Weapon Name | A | H | Dmg | Special Rules | |---------------------------|---|---|--------|--------------------------------| | Death Gaze | 5 | 3+| 5/10 | Range 6", Devastating 3, Severe| | Scythe of the Nightbringer| 3 | 3+| 5/10 | Disengage, Lethal 5+ | SPECIAL RULES ────────────────────────────────────────────── • Powerful Enemy: - Cannot be given a Conceal order. - Cannot be concealed, hidden, ambushed, or appear suddenly. - Always visible to the enemy. • Behavioral Directives: 1. Combat – Move toward nearest enemy to engage in melee; shoot if enemy shoots. 2. Load – Move toward nearest player via shortest path; shoot if enemy shoots. 3. Reposition – Move toward nearest player. • Reanimation Protocol: - When incapacitated, place a Reanimation marker beneath the operative. - At next activation, roll a D3: • 3+ → Reanimates with 1D3+1 wounds. • 1–2 → Remove from battlefield. • Authoritative Presence: - Can move through terrain features (including Wall trait) as if they weren’t there. - Prefers paths without Wall trait. STATS ────────────────────────────────────────────── | AP | MOV | SV | WD | |----|-----|----|----| | 2 | 5" | 4+ | 25 | ────────────────────────────────────────────── Translation courtesy of Copilot, but I got questions please. The Behavioural Directives, is that a thing in Kill Team? Haven't really played, I mostly do just 40k Crusade Campaigns. Is that a new thing or something that's already with Tyranids? And 25 Wounds is a decent amount, but that's like Custodes' level, right? So it looks like a weird option for a Necron Kill Team, you got some models, then this Nightbringer that runs rampant?

Your point is well taken, Grey Knights would be like the very bottom of my A Tier just because it's another Astartes. I was literally thinking about them, like Deathwatch gets better treatment than they do. And for an exception that kinda proves the rule, this edition they didn't get much treatment except for the Dread Knight I think, but lore-wise I see all this chatter about how the Terminus Decree that the Grey Knights guard has been retconned; it's like GW has to throw them a bone. With World Eaters getting a full range refresh last go-around, with a Primarch model, and Emperor's Children getting theirs recently, also with a Primarch...the Heretic Astartes seem to get a lot of attention. Not contradicting your point, because Loyalists get even more, but if full range refreshes aren't attention...those poor Dark Eldar.