Category Archives: Ian Humpage

Games Workshop, Ian Humpage, New Releases, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Warhammer 40k

Leviathan – Our thoughts on the box

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So everyone and their dog has heard about the Leviathan box over the past few months. It is a massive box, GW claim (once again) that it is the “Biggest Warhammer release in history!”

Looking at the pictures, there is no denying the amount contained, so let’s take a look at what you get.

I will dive into the miniatures in two more articles, one for marines and one for tyranids, but let’s take a look at everything else first.

Exclusive Warhammer 40,000 Leviathan Rulebook
This is typical and essential for a new edition launch box. There’s no point in having the box if you don’t get the new rules for the game. I had the 9th edition launch box, and the rulebooks contained are always of nice quality, chunky enough to rob a bank*, and the imagery makes it suitable for display. I have to say, though, the image of a terminators helmet with the Leviathan logos is not quite as nice as the logo free Guilliman/Abaddon duel image on the 9th book. But that’s just me!

Chapter Approved Leviathan Mission Deck
Now, this is what I am most interested in, having exclusively played Tempest of War since it’s release in 9th. I don’t think I have seen the community as united as they were over the positive reception of this format. It looks like GW has listened to the feedback and decided to make the mission generator the main way to play the game.
If you have played Tempest, then this looks to be exactly the same, apart from the addition of Gambits. Everything can be generated at the start of the game, and you can either have fixed secondary missions or tactical secondary missions (greater reward but constant change). The interesting thing here is that both sides can choose either type of secondary. They don’t have to be the same.
They have stated that tournaments may generate these missions ahead of time, but that will come down to the organiser. It does make sense for competitive play, but I will be interested to see how list building changes for tournaments that are randomised for every game.

I also love the addition of the Gambit mechanic. I need to play to really get a feel for it but the idea of being able to scrap your primary and try for a hail mary when you don’t think you can win feeds my love of cinematic moments in games. It is also very 40k that the example they give is basically turning everything to ash.
The idea is that at the end of the third battle round, you may play a secretly chosen gambit card from your Gambit deck. It isn’t made clear whether this is chosen at the start or at this point. Whilst the gambits can give you a large boost in points, it does look like meeting the terms of the card won’t guarantee you the points. The example below relies on a dice roll to complete it, and even meeting all the terms only gives you a 42% chance of succeeding.

Space Marines Transfer Sheet
Well, the box does contain Space Marines, so it would be silly not to include one. Although, at this point, I think even if the box didn’t contain Marines** it would still have one of these in just to make sure you remember they exist.

What are your thoughts on the box? Are you excited for the new mission systems as well? Let us know on our discord!

*Please don’t try to rob a bank with it. You will be laughed at.
** Blasphemy!

Where to Buy
GW has announced it will be available for a two-week preorder from Saturday, 10th June, I have included GWs times below. I always advocate supporting your local independent stockists, following the idea of Pay where you play, but if you are looking for somewhere, and would like to support Woehammer, we do have a couple of affiliate links:

US
Not Just Gamin’ will be offering the Leviathan box with a 15% discount!

UK
Element Games will also be offering the Leviathan box at 15% below the RRP

Age of Sigmar, Barak Zilfin, Fantasy, Games Workshop, Ian Humpage, Kharadron Overlords, Order

Woehammer Path to Glory Campaign – Ian

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As a currently casual 40k player I have always been interested in playing Age of Sigmar, especially the narrative based Path to Glory campaign. On joining the Woehammer team I saw an opportunity and prodded some of the others until they ‘volunteered’.

Now having the excuse to build a Sigmar army I had the difficult task of choosing a faction. I narrowed my shortlist down until I remembered my original entry point to Warhammer Fantasy way back when – Dwarves.

Now Dwarves, in their original Warhammer Fantasy format, don’t quite exist in the new Age of Sigmar setting. There are elements of them in the Cities of Sigmar faction but, seeing as this faction appears to be getting a major refresh, I didn’t want to risk buying an army to find the units become defunct. This left me with the choice between Fyreslayers and Kharadron Overlords. Out of these the Kharadron Overlords sold themselves with their very dwarvish tendencies (aethergold obsession, codes of honour, grudges) and big ships. Who doesn’t love a giant airship?

Yes, it helps that the Kharadron Overlords have just had a new codex Battletome released. It also has not passed my attention that they are performing especially well. These were not the main motivators behind my choice and, honestly, if they are overpowered currently all it will do is balance out with my lack of talent. So at best I may just scrape a couple of wins.

Khreld Thundergust

My warlord, an Aether-Khemist by trade, Khreld has worked for many aspiring captains over the years and now feels his talents warrant a higher cut of profit than anyone is willing to give. This left him with only one option, talk his way onto a skyvessel to call his own.

As I intend to have a fairly airship-heavy fleet it made Barak-Zilfin the obvious choice of subfaction – giving me more access to Great Endrinworks later down the line and allowing me to run Frigates as Battleline in my army. This also led me to give Khreld the Cunning Fleetmaster command trait so I can reposition my precious skyvessels to catch the enemy offguard. I have also given Khreld the Celestium Burst-grenade to maximise the damage of my mortal wounds.

Khreld Thundergust

The Crafty Dispute (Arkanaut Frigate)

Yes, I have taken the stupid brave choice to put a 300 point frigate in a 600 point army. Obviously I couldn’t have a Kharadron army without a skyvessel (they are gorgeous models) and Khreld needed a ship to start out on, so here we are!

Armed with a Heavy Skycannon, giving me more utility, the purpose of my frigate will be to disrupt the enemy battleline using bombs and firepower whilst, with 15 wounds and a 3+ save, drawing as much enemy fire as possible away from my other units.

Keelborne’s Endrinriggers

Led by a Mizzenmaster, Gryn Keelborne, the Endrinriggers will be providing repairs to The Crafty Dispute mid-battle whilst acting as fire support. I have forced Gryn to keep a Rapid-fire Rivet Gun to maximise the additonal attack he will get with the Aethermatic Saw. I have also decided against the volleygun on my second Endrinrigger as I feel the addional 3″ range and an average addition of three quarters of a wound per shooting phase is outdone by the -2 rend of the Rivet Gun. I may regret it but we shall see!

I have however chosen to give the third Endrinrigger the Grapnel Launcher. I love the idea of them just yoinking themselves away from an enemy charge. I can see the Skyhook being useful later in the campaign when more monsters appear but I think the battlefield movement will be key early on, especially as I only have four units total!

Stoutstock’s Company

Last, but definitely not least (apart from maybe in their cut of the profits) is the Arkanaut Company led by their Captain, Malkunn Stoutstock, wielding an Aetherflare Pistol. This time I will be maximising my weapon choices by taking an Aethermatic Volley Gun and Light Skyhook. The addional shots of the Volley Gun and the -2 rend and extra possible damage of the Skyhook seem like no-brainers to me. I will also be positioning them near my Aether-Khemist to the additional -1 Rend should have a nice impact. They will also have one Arkanaut armed with a Skypike just to give a little more danger in the inevitable melees.

The Stubborn Prospectors

And so, after some deliberation, The Stubborn Prospectors of Barak-Zilfin were born. At 600 points exactly it will be an interesting start to the campaign as I find out how much of a handicap forcing that frigate in will be. They will be organised in a Battle Regiment, as that is the only battalion I could see that would allow my array of units.

First Quest

The starting endeavour for my Stubborn Prospectors will be to earn The Crafty Dispute it’s own Great Endrinwork. I have opted tow rok towards Prudency Chutes as I inted to use the frigate as a transport later in the campaign. Assuming it survives that long…(of course it will, I’m not worried…)

As for collecting and painting my starting force – in true Kharadron Overlords fashion Khreld is having to hire his starting force. I will work on procuring forces of my own but, as I am sure my fellow hobbyists can sympathise with, time and money are both against me. On the plus side, Khreld himself is built, painted and ready for action!

Games Workshop, Ian Humpage, New Releases, News, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Space Marines, Warhammer 40k

Lion El’Jonson – Primarch Rules Revealed

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The primarch of the first legion has awoken from his slumber and returned to our tabletops. His rules are the latest Warhammer Community reveal. Let’s take a look at what he offers.

His stat line is very comparable to Guilliman’s, which makes sense as he could be argued as the ‘vanilla’ primarch. However there are some improvements including number of attacks and, most surprisingly, an additional leadership point.

The Lion does not come across as being especially tough either. With only toughness 6 and 9 wounds it would not take much for heavy weaponry to remove him from the field. There is currently no mention of a resurrection rule for him either so once he’s gone that’s it! He does have a couple of tricks up his sleeves though…

As with most Space Marine characters the Lion comes with a 4+ invulnerable save in the form of his shield. Whilst this is pretty solid it wouldn’t take many unsaved shots from heavy damage weapons (or a certain faction that can ignore invulnerable saves…) to put him back into his slumber.

This also has the ability to reflect melee attacks, dealing mortal wounds (to a maximum of 3) on any unmodified save rolls of 6. So coupled with his sword, Fealty, he is a definite melee threat.

The sweep profile will give him a total of 20 attacks into a single unit so, at strength 6 and AP of -3, that is most standard units sliced up in quick succession even without the 2 damage each wound causes. Then there is also a strike profile that gives him strength 10 attacks at AP -5 and 4 damage apiece. With a potential 40 damage output (averaging about 5.5 successful wounds, or 20- 22 damage, against most targets up to toughness 9 before saving throws) he has the potential to deal with most large foes.

The most interesting reveal is his ability to deep strike using the Forestwalk ability.40k LionRules Mar28 Boxout3This is a particularly good deep strike as it allows you to re-roll a charge roll. As the Lion appears to be fairly fragile against shooting this would be a game-changing roll.

As is the current issue with the existing edition, I see the Lion being another high value model that will either be snuffed out before he finishes his morning coffee or an absolute machine that will decimate an army as he moves from engagement to engagement. We have, however, not been shown his entire ruleset yet and there is no mention of a firearm. There is definitely one on the model and I doubt somehow that it will just be a heavy bolt pistol.

What are your thoughts on the Lion? Are his rules even worth looking at with the imminent re-write coming with 10th edition? Let me know!

Games Workshop, Ian Humpage, News, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Warhammer 40k

Warhammer 40k Datasheet Changes

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One of the major announcements for 40k’s Tenth Edition was the changes to the datasheets and the production of data cards with all the unit information included. One of my favourite parts of Age of Sigmar, and other similar games, is having as much information on the table top in front of you as possible, so you don’t have to constantly look at apps and books. So this is a very welcome addition!

Let’s take a closer look at what is included on the cards:

The unit stats appear to stay mostly the same in regards to Movement, Toughness, Save, and Wounds. Leadership is still present, but there is talk of a new way of applying Battleshock, which will be revealed in the coming weeks. What we know so far is that it will be included in the command phase and will affect how the unit acts rather than killing models.

There is also a brand new stat included, which is listed as “OC”. According to the FAQ article, on the Warhammer Community site, this stands for Objective Control and is ‘a measure of how good a unit is at holding a contested objective’. Now, will this be a measure per model? As a unit of 20 termagants could have an OC score of up to 40 if they sit around an objective (to be fair, not much else will get on the objective if that is the case!). We shall see!

Interestingly, the Strength, Ballistic and Weapons Skills and the Attacks characteristics have been moved to the specific weapons instead of being in the unit stats. I imagine this is to remove the weapon modifiers and instead have the given characteristic in the weapon information. For example – a marine with a thunder hammer currently has a WS of 3+, and the hammer’s weapon abilities state “Subtract 1 from the attack’s hit roll”. I can see this instead of just saying WS 4+ on the weapons stat line. This can also apply with weapons like the Astartes Chainsword (+1 attack) and the Power Sword (+1 strength). I personally welcome having these modifiers included in the stat line as it will be easier to apply stat changes to help balance weapon profiles.

I have also noticed that there doesn’t appear to be a space for specific weapon abilities outside of the keywords listed alongside the weapon name. This must mean they are going to make full use of their new “Universal Special Rules” application to simplify this. I am intrigued to see more on these moving forward!

The abilities section is also useful as having all the unit abilities listed for reference will make it much easier to remember everything that is going on.

Apparently, a lot of the abilties and stratagems are going to become reactive. The example given on the Termagant card, “Skulking Horror”, appears to be a good example of this as it allows you to move the termagants, once per turn, up to D6 inches away from an approaching enemy.

I like this approach as it will make you feel a lot less helpless when you see that a mistake you made, or perhaps an advance roll that didn’t quite get you enough movement, is about to cause you a lot of pain. This particular rule also requires some thought on your opponents side. Let’s say those Termagants are not quite on an objective, your opponent moving a unit within 9” of them could give you the extra few inches to take control and gain some valuable victory points in your next command phase (assuming scoring works the same way).

The last section is the Key Words, split into unit and faction specific. This appears to work in the same way as the current edition.

I, personally, am quietly hopeful that these changes will make the game much more playable with less time flicking through books and less of a heavy reliance on remembering all these stats. My only concern is the frequency at which GW amend rules with FAQs, will it make those shiny datasheet cards you purchased obsolete quickly (I am thinking of the existing datacard packs and how often the wording is changed). There are ways around this such as FAQ sticker packs that could allow you to stick the new wording or stat line over the existing printed card but I see this as being more of a third party item than something GW will produce. But we shall see!

Let me know your thoughts, are you excited for this, cautiously optimistic or do you have a slight feeling of dread for these changes?

Games Workshop, Ian Humpage, News, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Space Marines, Tyranids, Warhammer 40k

Warhammer 40k 10th Edition Cinematic

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With all the excitement around the new edition of 40k coming soon I thought I would do a bit of a sift of the glorious cinematic they released and try to find any little glimmers of what kind of models to expect in the new box. As we know from the last editions release they do like to tease us with small details.

This is all obviously speculation and entirely my own opinion as to what we may have seen. Please feel free to point out my errors or anything I missed. I am hoping to start conversations about the game I love!

So let us delve into the grim darkness and see what we find.

Let’s start with the Tyranids and, with what is likely the most obvious, the screamer-killer.

Now we already have a screamer-killer variant of the existing carnifex model, from 2005, but this looks more like the old-school 1992 version to me, with less of a hunchback and less armour around the head. We also see the bio-plasmic scream in action, so it seems unlikely to be anything else. Perhaps a new dedicated model influenced by the original?

We have already had the new termagant model revealed, so we know that is coming. The last little tidbit I spotted for Tyranids was in this image…

Now, bear with my (hopeful) flight of fancy here but this coupled with a few more still looks like a possible Lictor? It is being displayed as a stealthy-boi with two giant appendages so…maybe? The existing model is from 2005, and in dire need of a refresh, so it is not beyond belief. There is also another image that helps add evidence to this.

Okay, so that last one is as clear as mud, like any good conspiracy photo, but when you watch those few frames, the bioform that grabs the apothecary and slings it around like a dog with a chew-toy very much resembles a Lictor. Again, this may be hope driving me to find connections that don’t exist but you never know…

Moving onto the marines, things are a little clearer here.

Yep, that’s another Redemptor Dreadnaught variant called the Gunslinger. I think that just about covers all the vairants the original Dreadnaught kit could built (ranged, hybrid and close combat) so should we start the retirement party now?

Not much else on new models here.. oh wait, there was something.

..

Terminators are back! Well, they never really left but they have a new sculpt. I am hoping the assault terminators will not be far behind (love me a thunder hammer and storm shield!) but at least we know the reliable old guard are not going anywhere. Including a new Terminator Librarian (who looks badass!)

I also spied some possible new weapon options for Primaris marines…

I believe that Reiver is holding a combi-flamer? And is that a Primaris Intercessor with a flamer? (Don’t roast me too hard if it’s not an intercessor, power armour variants were never my strong point!) I don’t think I have seen those weapons on any existing models so perhaps they are teasing at new weapons for these kits?

Let me know if you have seen anything different? Or if I missed anything entirely, or am living in a fantasy land. As always, this is for the fun of speculation and discussion!

See you in the grim dark!