Halandaar

Ok well all you negative Nancy's leave the pre orders alone for this one then, okay? It's Kill Team so they probably only made about 14 copies, I will be narked if nobody's enthused about it bar me and I still can't get one.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME GW I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS SINCE THE MIKE MCVEY DIORAMA SHUT UP AND TAKE MY KIDNEY

Added photo of kits from Armageddon to my vow post as requested

If it was me running the company, I'd be resurrecting the ForgeWorld brand as an in-house 3d print shop, not unlike Pop Goes the Monkey. There's a massive market for faction-specific bits and GW used to tap into that with the FW resin upgrade sets - switching that same principle from cast resin to 3d printing allows you to pump out those armour-mark-specific shoulder pad sets with chapter icons on with basically no production setup costs and no warehousing, just print/QC/pack/ship. The number of product variations you can offer skyrockets because you don't have to maintain physical moulds or inventory, and just a couple of competent 3d artists can roll out new products on a weekly basis. It can be all your usual fare like shoulder pads, helmets, weapons, accessories, vehicle icons etc, but because they've got all the 3d assets for the plastic range already it would be fairly trivial for them to make upgrade parts that match specific kits; imagine a webstore where you can add a Primaris Captain to your cart, and then you can select optional resin upgrades designed specifically for that kit like an Imperial Fists chestplate or a Exorcists legplate with the runic designs on, maybe whole sets like a Salamander kit that gives you a scaled version of the cloak, a chestplate with chain decoration rather than ropes, chainmail tabard with hammer/smithing tools, a chapter-specific shoulder pad etc. You can repeat that for basically every kit to create a sprawling product range that never needs maintenance or physical storage space. It would also be a far more effective (and profitable) way of undermining the third-party bits market than their continual litigation efforts.

Going to be my homebrew chapter, the Argent Praetorians. No you're quite right, when I drafted the vow I only had one Captain, but found the old one from Indomitus in a box and added that to the vow without updating the points total. Thanks!

I, HALANDAAR, heed the Call to Arms and pledge to paint the following models for a total of 45 POINTS for the glory of the ADEPTUS ASTARTES subfaction of the Astartes Stronghold on or before 15th September 2026, or bear the badge of failure until years end. Captain (5pts) (From Armageddon - not included in pic) Captain (5pts) Librarian(5pts) Ancient (5pts) Apothecary (5pts) Lieutenant (5pts) Chaplain on Bike (5pts) 6x Bladeguard Veterans (6pts) 2x Invader ATV (6pts) Land Speeder (3pts) (From Armageddon - not included in pic) I have an additional “Job’s a Big’Un” vow for 10 POINTS, also for the ADEPTUS ASTARTES subfaction of the Astartes Stronghold: Roboute Guilliman (10) Hopefully okay to include stuff from Armageddon I don't have in hand yet - can always add "before" pics when I get the box! EDIT - Adding photo of Armageddon bits:

The Marines themselves look great, but reusing the MKVI jump pack on the Assault Squad instead of doing a new MKIV one is a real mark against them IMO given how iconic that Jump Pack design is. Will still buy them

I was only thinking the other day I wish they did a match to Incubi Darkness, so I can't decide whether the one that matches to Kabalite Green will do much the same job with a tweak to the paint scheme, or if that effectively ends any hope of getting a shortcut for this colour shy of an airbrush,

Just looks to me like three levels of painting, each progressively more detailed. Battle Ready / Parade Ready / TONE|PRO™ Ready?

Was very pleased to break my vow-failing streak in last year's edition. I have a disgraceful amount of stuff to paint this time, hoping to have a good one on par with my old ETL outputs.

For those who either can't or don't want to sit through a 45 minute video for the answers, transcript below. I tried to leave it mostly verbatim, just cleaned up a bit.

The existence of these doesn't feel fundamentally different to me than the printed MDF terrain in the Kill Team starter set, which as far as I remember was pretty well received as an idea. Chuck a frame or two of these in the inevitable 11E Combat Patrol starter set, and the also inevitable 2027 Hachette Partworks 40k collection, seems like a win for almost everybody likely to pick those products up. If they are also available unpainted (seems plausible), that's a bonus.

Obviously we've had a few characterful boxes already (Hell's Last, Gaunt's Ghosts) but the recent trend of GW being happy to mix model types/factions/species in those sets (see Wardens of Ultramar, Masters of the Maelstrom, also The Blacktalons and Saviors of Cinderfall in AoS) has me hopeful we might see a few more. They could very easily do flavourful 5-6 models boxes based on several BL characters: Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Ciaphas Cain, Talos & First Claw, the Ezekarion and so on. Personally I would love to see the annual Black Library model be more along these lines, although cool standalones like Oltyx/Valgul would be good too (isn't there supposed to be a Solomon Akurra mini on the way?) Then you have all the great characters from the history of the 40K game who were just removed because they didn't have official or in-production minis (as opposed to being removed because they were killed off in the lore i.e. Tycho, Xavier, Aun'Va etc): Drukhari are probably missing the most with Asdrubael Vect, Baron Sathonyx, Kheradruakh, Duke Sliscus, Urien Rakarth, even Kruellagh if you want to go back that far. For Craftworlds the obvious one is Kharandras, but also there's Iyanna Arienal and Nuadhu Fireheart who had rules in the olden days. Who else have we got? Nazdreg, Zagstruk, Kaptin Badrukk (feels like a return could be on the cards for any of these with the Ork overhaul, but Nazdreg feels most likely), Doomrider. Obviously there are a bunch of Space Marines but meh, I think we have those guys pretty well covered already unless there's an option to bring the Forgeworld characters in to the main line - I'd love to see upscaled plastics for Tyberos, Asterion Moloc, and official minis for characters like Lias Issodon and Malakim Phoros to get some proper representation of more successor chapters out there. Basically, make them all. They're all cool.

I wouldn't write it off just yet. Removing "free" Crusade content from the Codexes everybody buys anyway in order to sell narrative-focused players a standalone expansion book is exactly the sort of decision GW would make.

For anybody still interested in a list of Spearhead issues, I created a list over at The Grand Alliance for that purpose