Halandaar

For me they're so different that it's hard to objectively call one better than the other. They are both very good examples of two different styles of RTS.

Can't confirm savings when we don't know what price these boxes are going to sell for. If they pitch them at £100 (same price as Combat Patrols), Mechanicum box will save you £58.25 (36.8%) - but it could very easily cost more than that.

If somebody produces a 3d scan of an actual GW model and makes that available as a downloadable file, I think it would be hard to argue that this isn't fundamentally piracy, in the same category as downloading films or music which obviously have had big legal campaigns against individual users in the past. Would GW go after file owners? I doubt that they could even if they were of a mind to - they don't have the clout that the early 2000s music industry used to compel platforms to identify individuals who downloaded copyrighted files so I can't see any actual consequences there, but I am not in any way qualified to say that with any certainty. Outside of that specific case, I can't see there ever being any pushback to end users if they are downloading stuff that is essentially, but not exactly copying GW IP.

If they get priced the same as Combat Patrols (£100) they'd be 40% off for the Astartes, 36.8% off for the Mechanicum and 33.6% off for the Auxilia, which IMO is probably slightly wishful thinking, given the range of discount on Combat Patrols is more like 28-33% (obviously some are better than others and there are some outside this range, but 40% would be a real outlier for a Combat Patrol or Spearhead.) Feels like £110 seems more likely, would put the discounts at 33.9%, 30.5% and 26.9% respectively which is more like what the 40K and AoS boxes offer.

In my defence I watched it with the sound off

Think you need to take a closer look at the logos of the "plans" for 2026-2028

Don't think this would work - that'd effectively be like having a traditional Total War game where the entire map is sea and every settlement it's own tiny island, where the majority of battles are between ships rather than armies. It also really only allows factions like Space Marines to excel because planetary assaults and boarding actions is their thing; it would take away most of the identity of a faction like the Guard, which is all about massive grinding land battle campaigns, and would pretty much invalidate things like Knights altogether. For any TW:40K game you have to strike a balance where space is important, but it's not the defining feature. This isn't Battlefleet Gothic, after all. So IMO what you want is a star system with 3-6 main planets on it, where each planet is roughly analogous to a continent in TW:W and space is the sea that separates them. That way you can have armies moving between planets and boarding actions (just like travelling across the sea and naval battles in TW:W), but the majority of the warfare is about conquering the planets themselves. Sure some will be relatively small where taking a single location is enough control the entire planet, but others need to massive with multiple battlefronts, hive cities and spaceports to take.

We remember it, it's just not relevant. I mean we don't act like there should never be another Warhammer MMO because Age of Reckoning was shut down do we?

Yeah I think 40k as a setting would really suit a proper MOBA, it would just have to be a dedicated game in that style, not the weird RTS-with-MOBA-influence mashup that DoWIII felt like. I guess the problem is finding an audience in a genre dominated by two very big games; even Blizzard couldn't get Heroes of the Storm to stick (despite it being much, much more fun than LoL or DOTA, in my opinion)

Oh sure, it's more that I would have preferred 10 Raptor models in the box than 5 and a Lord. After all they've done that with the new Deathwatch (in-game the team is only 5 models, but you get 10 of them in the box)

Also also, per the Warhammer Instagram it looks like it's the Lord and 5 Raptors for the Chaos side which is a bit of a shame given the article shows 8 Operative types buildable from the kit.

As an aside, first KT box in while I'll be definitely trying to get hold of. Have a Sisters army and a Chaos force in need of some new Raptors (and the Jump lord is a nice bonus as I lack one of those too).

Grey Knight Codex with no sign of kit updates followed within 3 months by a brand new upscaled GK Kill Team is just odious enough I would put money on this happening.

If nothing else this should finally put a bolt round in the skull of "GW does leaks intentionally for hype", no?

Apparently the German version (Dawn of War: Der Kampf Geht Weiter) has a release date of 1st September although that's anecdotal, can't find a listing on a German store with a date on it. It's much more financially viable for UK buyers if all you're after is the models - I got the last Combat Arena one (the one with the Ambull) for about 35 Euros including shipping to the UK.