New Tyranid Models

In one of the most unexpected moves since the introduction of the Imperial Knights, GW has just released the Toxicrene/Maleceptor kit for Tyranids. Both are monstrous creatures, with the first being a highly toxic Cthulhu-like critter while the other is a psyker with a potent witchfire ability.

Fluff and Rules
According to the fluff, Tyranid bioforms such as Warriors, Hormagaunts, Termagants, and Gargoyles are essentially more advanced and/or specialized forms of Rippers. The Hive Mind can further enhance these forms to monstrous proportions: e.g., Trygons are essentially enormous Raveners (which are themselves a variation of Warriors), Harpies are big Gargoyles, etc. The new models are no exception. According to the recent White Dwarf, the Maleceptor is an "adaptation of the Zoanthrope", while the Toxicrene is an "expression of the 'family tree' begun with the creation of the Venomthrope".

Imagine these guys, but big enough to actually need limbs

Both have the standard Tyranid WS and BS, as well as the same toughness as most monstrous creatures. The Maleceptor's strength is one point higher than the Toxicrene's, while both have five Wounds. The Maleceptor, being a Synapse Creature, has a higher Leadership. Sadly, both have a 4+ save, meaning that they won't get armor saves against the majority of weapons suited for monster hunting. A 5++ on the Maleceptor and Shrouded on the Toxicrene improve their survivability, though.

The Maleceptor is essentially a psychic assassin with a pretty mean focussed witchfire attack. This power, and the big bug's mediocre close combat ability, mean that it's designed to stand back and pick off high value targets. The cost of the unit seems too high for what it does, although I don't have a whole lot of experience with 7th Edition Tyranids. Regardless of its abilities, I find the model to be pretty boring.

The Maleceptor

It's the Toxicrene that really interests me. This bug has a very short range Poisoned (2+) large blast attack that can actually damage a vehicle that has lost one or more hull points. Where it really excels, though, is in close combat. The Toxicrene has six Poisoned (2+) attacks that strike at I6 thanks to its lash whips. Being a monstrous creature, all of its close combat attacks are AP2. On top of that, it has the Hypertoxic rule, which means that To Wound rolls of 6 have the Instant Death special rule. GW threw in Toxic Miasma and Acid Blood for kicks and giggles.

Although the Toxicrene model shares most of the same parts as the Maleceptor, the model is a lot more interesting to me. The lash whips and the tentacles around the mouth make an enormous difference.

The Toxicrene

Precedence?
Although I appreciate that GW is continuing to develop new models and rules, this release is downright odd. Tyranids got their most recent codex in January 2014, making theirs the second to last full codex of 6th Edition. (I don't count Legion of the Damned or Imperial Knights given that they aren't really meant to work as stand-alone armies.) Now, a mere nine months after getting a new codex, Tyranids have two entirely new units.

In recent years, the only new units added to an army outside of a codex release were the Stormtalon and the Ork flyer variants. The reason for this was obvious; when 40K 6th Edition introduced Flyers, the new models ensured that Space Marines and Orks would have Flyers along with those armies that had models grandfathered into the Flyer category (i.e., the Stormraven, the Razorwing, the Doom Scythe/Night Scythe, and the Valkyrie).

But the Toxicrene and Maleceptor aren't new unit types at all, they're just monstrous creatures with new abilities. So why were they released less than a year after their army's latest codex?

Third Party Paranoia
We're all aware of GW's newfound phobia of third party model makers and the crusade to eliminate any pre-existing units that don't have a model or to avoid introducing rules for a new unit unless they're accompanied by a kit. It's possible that GW wanted to release the Toxicrene and the Maleceptor earlier this year, but didn't want to introduce even more models at the time of the Tyranids' 6th Edition update. Or perhaps their manufacturing capability wasn't sufficient to simultaneously produce another large kit. Rather than risk creating new units for 6th Edition and allowing third parties to produce models of them, they simply decided to release the rules only after the models were ready.

Appealing to the Hobbyists

It seems to me that a lot of people who are attracted to Tyranids enjoy them as much, if not more so, for the modeling aspects. It's very possible that the Toxicrene and Maleceptor were thought up after the codex release as a way of interesting Tyranid players into buying even more large models. Modern CAD/CAM drastically shortens design and manufacture times, meaning that even large models could be devised and produced within less than year.

Big models seem to be the thing right now, with Imperial Knights, Wraithknights, and the new giant Fantasy models selling pretty well. Maybe GW believes that there's a critical mass of large models that will get hobbyists interested in starting a new army that can be filled with them. Two and a half years ago, I was strongly tempted to start a Tyranid army dominated with monstrous creatures. I have to admit that these new models may have re-sparked my interest.

Filling a Gap
The Tyranid codex may have been one of the most disappointing codexes of 6th Edition. After their mediocre 5th Edition codex, Tyranid players were hoping for a competitive boost. The new codex wasn't exactly what they were looking for. (Although some players believe the Rising Leviathan dataslates released afterward significantly improved the army.)

While the new units look interesting, opinion on their rules has been mixed. No one seems to be able to figure out how they're supposed to improve the army or what gap they're supposed to be filling. If GW believes that these new models fill a niche in the army, I have yet to see any guesses on what it could be.

The fact that GW is releasing models outside of the codex is a good sign, though, since it suggests that they may become more flexible in addressing armies' weaknesses in between codex releases. Maybe they'll finally release a model for the Mycetic spore along with a re-release (or an improved version) of its rules.

Preparation for a New Codex?
Not long ago, I suggested that GW would update the 6th Edition codexes to match the style and power levels of the 7th Edition codexes. I guessed that this would happen within three years of the last update of a codex. With these new models, I wonder if GW is testing the Forge World method: release a new model with experimental rules, allow the gaming community to play test it for you, adjust the rules as necessary, and publish the rules in an updated book.

Come to think of it, it's strange that GW hasn't been doing that all along.

Predicting the Future of 40K

Curse my lack of Prescience

About two years ago I started posing my multi-part C:SM 6th Edition Codex Wishlist (see here, here, and here). Granted, these were more wants than predictions, but when the codex finally came out, it was obvious that I wasn't particularly good at forecasting the kinds of changes that we did see (here and here). Despite that, it's still fun to try to predict the direction of 40K.

The Current State
As is becoming apparent, GW is likely to bring all of its codexes up to 6th/7th Edition standards within the next year. The Dark Eldar codex is expected to be released later this month, leaving only Necrons, Blood Angels, and Sisters of Battle without a hardcover 6th/7th Edition codex (I don't count Inquisition since it's not one of the classic, established armies). I would guess that new codexes and the associated models are GW's primary source of income, meaning that they'll have to keep producing something to stay in business.

The 'rule set that was here to stay', 6th Edition, was replaced within two years. But 7th Edition was essentially a slightly revised and expanded version of 6th Edition, which suggests to me that GW saw some things they didn't like with 6th and decided that they wanted a more polished rule set to be 'the one to stay'. Seventh Edition also left the door wide open for army builds (e.g., Lords of War, Super-heavies, Formations and non-traditional Detachments, non-traditional allies), giving GW little reason to revise the rulebook anytime soon and all the reason in the world to encourage gamers to build enormous armies with an unprecedented amount of variety.

Models, Models, Models
This is a safe bet. There are still a lot of resin and metal models out there, some of which are for popular units; e.g., the Space Marine Thunderfire Cannon, the Zoanthrope, all Sisters of Battle). Even the fancy Inquisition and Assassin units that GW is pushing are predominately in Finecast or pewter.

I would buy this model in a heartbeat if it were made of plastic

In most circles, Finecast still has a bad reputation, with many gamers like myself simply refusing to buy the stuff. Thus, I expect GW to keep pushing out kits to replace as many Finecast/pewter models as possible. I also expect them to continue producing mono-pose HQs and/or named characters (complete with dataslates, where necessary). As much as I hate the price tags on these models (the Librarian I just bought has a retail price of $30), they look great. I would be even more willing to buy a jump pack Chaplain or a Librarian in Terminator armor for the same cost. I'd probably pay even more for a plastic Master of the Forge.

Oh, and I want a plastic Thunderhawk.

I would easily spend $200 for that

Codexes
Contrary to my expectations, 7th Edition codexes ended up being different from the 6th Edition codexes. The biggest changes include reduced opportunities for shifting units from one Force Organization slot to another (this is most notable for Grey Knights), alternate Force Organization charts (probably intended to compensate for the first change), and the movement of major HQ choices into the Lord of War slot.

Where's your Draigo-wing now?

That leaves several 6th Edition codexes with a few less restrictions than the newer ones (e.g., Deathwing Terminators, Wraithguard, and Space Marine bikes can still be made troops with the right HQs while beasts like Marneus Calgar are still HQs) but a bit less flexibility (the older codexes are still restricted to the traditional Force Organization chart).

I would guess that GW will start revising the 6th Edition codexes, possibly aiming for a release within three years after the last update (e.g., a new Codex: Chaos Space Marines before October 2015). The bulk of the changes would simply bring them in line with the 7th Edition codexes by eliminating the shifting of certain units from one Force Organization slot to another, adding new and fluffy alternate Force Organizations, and moving characters like Calgar into the Lord of War slot.

This would also be the perfect opportunity to fix the problems that have become apparent in certain codexes. The consensus seems to be that Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels could use a few strategic points adjustments or some boosts (I'm no fan of the Ruinous Powers, but Chaos Space Marines should not run away if they lose combat) while Eldar could be toned down a bit.

Dataslates and Formations
That GW will keep producing dataslates seems obvious. They're cheap and easy to produce and distribute. To GW's benefit, they encourage gamers to buy models they wouldn't have bought otherwise or to buy them in previously unthinkable quantities. An otherwise undesirable model might get special rules that make it worth taking or a dataslate might allow a player to bring more HQ, Elite, Fast Attack, or Heavy Support units than would normally be allowed (and therefore purchased).

So many Terminators...

For example, until he got Dataslate: Helbrutes, the 40K Cabal's Chaos Space Marine player was very unhappy with his underperforming multi-melta Helbrute (any C:SM player will tell you that a multi-melta Dreadnought without a drop pod is pretty useless). Now the other members of the Cabal have to worry about a trio of Deep Striking Helbrutes showing up in their rear lines.

As for me, with five Terminators, eight Assault Terminators, and a Terminator Captain, I figured I was done buying Terminator models. Now, thanks to the Strike Force Ultra dataslate (20 Terminators plus a Terminator Captain), I've found myself buying even more of them.

While being a cash cow for GW, I think dataslates also benefit the gamers by keeping existing codexes fresh and allowing the development of new strategies and an endless variety of builds.

I'll take an Ultramarines 1st
Company Supplement, please

Supplements
I'll finish with the dataslate's big brother. I had thought that GW gave up on these when the rumored Raven Guard and White Scars supplements failed to turn up and GW started cranking out dataslates. Now that the two existing 7th Edition codexes have supplements (Waaagh! Ghazkull and Champions of Fenris, respectively) and the Dark Eldar codex is rumored to have at least one supplement, it looks like GW may be dedicated to producing them after all.

These are also no-brainers. Like dataslates they keep a codex fresh and encourage gamers to buy more models, but with their expanded scope, they inspire fluff-minded gamers to build entire armies around the Supplement rather than just one or two smaller detachments.

I suspect that a 7th Edition Space Marine codex would be more generic in its builds while Supplements would allow more specialization than was previously available; e.g., Mounted Assault would be removed from the parent codex and a similar rule or a Force Organization that promotes the use of bikes would be provided in a White Scars Supplement. A Raven Guard Supplement, on the other hand, could allow the use of more jump pack units.

Grey Knights, Rumors, Warhammer Fantasy, and New Armies in the Cabal

Recently I've spent a lot of time preparing models for my traditional pre-winter priming, meaning that this blog and my general interest blog have been thoroughly neglected. Fortunately, there's nothing like a post of miscellanea for keeping the blog current:

Grey Knights

GW's release of the Grey Knights codex certainly took the community by surprise. After months of whispering about Dark Eldar, Space Wolves, etc., the rumormongers somehow completely missed that Codex: Grey Knights was to be the next release.

It was also a bit surprising that the Grey Knights received no new models or units. I supposed it made some sense; Grey Knights already had a lot of beautiful plastic models from 5th Edition whereas many of the new models that other armies got with their 6th or 7th Edition codexes were actually just plastic replacements for Finecast or pewter models rather than new units. Still, I half expected Grey Knights to get a pre-existing kit like the Stalker.

I still haven't played against Carl's Grey Knights under the new codex, so I don't know how much of a challenge they'll be. From what I've seen of the rules, though, I'd hate to play Daemons against them.

Rumors
And speaking of unexpected releases, it seems like the accuracy of rumors has become extremely poor in recent months. With Space Marines, we knew the entirety of the Space Marine codex a month in advance. The rumors nailed several details of the Tau and Eldar codexes early on. And the general idea of Imperial Knights was circulating almost a year before their release. Several rumors even predicted that we'd see a 7th Edition well before it was expected, and they even got some of the details right. However, certain rumors about 7th were aggressively wrong. Remember when a "reliable source" insisted that 7th Edition was moving towards a percentage-based force organization with "sideboards" catering to the tournament crowd? Fortunately, it didn't take long for White Dwarf leaks to show us that the truth was the exact opposite and we were going to get a ruleset that gave us extremely permissive "Battle-forged" armies and even more permissive "Unbound" armies.

I'd seen plenty of inaccurate rumors in the past, but it seems like they've been particularly bad recently. Rumormongers have been completely missing huge releases while giving us outrageously incorrect information and downright fantasies.

Where's my plastic Thunderhawk? Oh, right, GW
is still trying to get it to fit on six sprues.

How often did we hear that Guard would finally get those artillery kits that were previously available only from Forge World? It was only on the eve of the codex's release that we heard that, instead of new models, those artillery units had simply been removed from the codex. In their place, Guard ended up with the Wyvern. The Tyranid release was similar; units that were rumored to be getting models instead disappeared from the codex.

Were any of the long-standing Ork rumors true? (Grot-based armies? Choppas that had an AP value on the charge?) Did any rumors predict the Gorkanaut or the drastic changes to Mob Rule before the White Dwarf leaks? How often did we hear of a Dark Eldar/Blood Angels starter set before the Ork/Space Wolves collection and the Sanctus Reach Campaign took us by surprise?

Until the White Dwarf images leaked, how many rumors anticipated Logan Grimnar's chariot or the Stormwolf? Even while GW was rolling out new Space Wolves products, rumors incorrectly predicted that certain HQs would be getting plastic models.

And then Codex: Grey Knights, enormous Warhammer Fantasy kits, and the Nagash book simply dropped out of the sky while those with "inside information" were yammering about Dark Eldar, Necrons, Blood Angels, and Brettonians.

I've reached the point where, unless a rumor is  accompanied by photos, I simply don't believe it.

And Speaking of Fantasy...
The models of Nagash and his Mortarchs are absolutely amazing. I love my Space Marines' model line, but the Fantasy players seem to get some of the best toys. If I weren't already overwhelmed with piles of unfinished Ultramarines, these new releases (and earlier releases like the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon or the Coven Throne) would almost certainly convince me to start an Undead army.

They almost tempt me to play Fantasy

Several of the Cabal members are seriously considering starting Fantasy armies. Interestingly, as was the case with 40K, none of us are interested in the same armies. Bryce would do a Goblin-dominated Orcs & Goblins army, Jon would do Dwarves, Jake would field Lizardmen, and (if I were a faster modeler) I would want a Vampire Counts army led by Nagash.

Army Changes In the 40K Cabal
In the right column of this blog is a brief introduction to the members of our gaming group and the armies they play. After staying nearly constant for a while, I've had to update it recently (and learned this week that I'm going to have to revise it again) due to shuffling in some of our members' armies.

A few months ago, Bryce sold his Tau army to Jake, who is now trying to sell his Dark Angels to fund the Greater Good. Jake had really wanted to field a Ravenwing bike army but found that the Dark Angels' 2nd Company isn't particularly competitive on its own. When he played one or two games with Bryce's Tau and finally got to look through their codex (where he realized that he loved the fluff), Jake knew that the army was for him. It's always sad to see a friend fall into heresy.

In the meantime, always eager to try a new army, Bryce has since started a Raven Guard Space Marine army led by Shadow Captain Shrike. Although he hasn't actively played Space Marines in years, Bryce has loved the Raven Guard's fluff for quite some time. After playing Tau and Imperial Guard for so long, it's entertaining to watch him try to get used to an assault-oriented army again.

I've considered starting a second army for at least a couple years, but I've finally conceded that I'm rather fond of my Ultramarines and that I should actually put a dent in my pile of unfinished models before I start a new army. However, I do have a couple of unbuilt Imperial Knight models, which are eager to join the Ultramarines as an Imperial Knight Detachment.

Finally, to the great surprise of the rest of the Cabal, our Ork player bought the last Stormclaw box from Jake's HobbyTown this week. No, it wasn't for the Ork models (except for Face-rippa, he wasn't really impressed with the selection of greenskin units); it was for the Space Wolves. He even picked up the Space Wolves codex while he was there. That's right, one of our most diehard Xenos players will be bringing another loyalist Space Marine army to our tables, conveniently replacing the soon-to-be departed Dark Angels.

Although Jon claims it could be a year before he actually plays them, he's so excited about his new models that I predict that we'll be seeing Space Wolves a lot earlier than that.

The Space Wolf Flyers and Advanced Astartes Weapons

When I first started getting into the hobby, I briefly looked at Space Wolves. Unfortunately, the unruly (and often ridiculous) hair on many of the models drove me back to Vanilla Marines.

Although I've long since realized that I haven't the time or the energy to focus on anything but my Ultramarines, it's still fun to look at what other armies are getting. Ever since the first photos leaked, I've been inexplicably interested in the new Stormwolf transport and the Stormfang Gunship variant.

Aesthetics and Aerodynamics

At first glance, the flyer struck me as being immensely ugly. It looks like someone threw a cockpit and a bunch of engines on a cargo container. Within a couple of days, though, I started to think about it the same way I think about Space Marine Centurions; it's big, it's ugly, it's a Space Marine vehicle. That's just how they are. If you want elegance, the Eldar have it in spades.

It seems that a lot of gamers passionately decry GW's lack of aerodynamic sense. Honestly, I care a lot more about design consistency with the rest of the army. For example, my one complaint about Forge World's Storm Eagle flyer is that it seems a little too sleek. The Stormtalon, Stormraven, Stormwolf, and Thunderhawk all look like they decided to use oversized engines and a healthy dose of sci-fi technology to defy all aerodynamic theory. It's as if they said, with a defiant sneer, "I will hurl this slab of metal as fast as I want and nothing as insubstantial as a mere gas will stop me." If anything says "Space Marines" to me, it's that attitude.

Besides, the game is supposed to take place in the bizarre universe of the 41st Millennium; between various technological advances and the apparent effectiveness of placing one's faith in a vehicle's Machine Spirit, I wouldn't expect many flyers in the 40K universe to be particularly dependent on classic aerodynamics.

In my mind, the Stormwolf's most apparent sin against modern aerodynamics is how much weight is located in front of the main wings. To maintain a level attitude, the wings of a modern airplane are generally located at or near (in the case of aircraft with a fly-by-wire system) the craft's center of gravity. A design like the Stormwolf's would constantly try to fly directly into the ground. The tiny control surfaces near its nose wouldn't be able to compensate for how far back the wings are, especially at low speeds.

However, the model's designer seems to have understood how unbalanced a real-world Stormwolf would be and threw in a few features to compensate. In the White Dwarf that introduced the flyer, the designer says that the Space Wolves prefer to stay close to a planet's surface and that the flyer is designed to accommodate that preference. The Stormwolf incorporates larger versions of the Land Speeder's gravitic plates along the nose to repel the flyer from the ground, which would solve the balance issue at low altitudes. However, gravitic plates are supposed to be less effective at higher altitudes. Although he doesn't state it explicitly, the designer must have considered that too; a group of four thrusters located underneath the nose could aid in keeping the flyer level when the gravitic plates aren't fully effective.

New Weapons and New Fluff
With the Space Wolves about halfway through their release, it's starting look like they'll be sticking with the new helfrost weapons instead getting of grav-weapons, the Stormwolf and Stormfang will be their only flyers, and they won't be fielding Centurions. This is good news; I would be tremendously annoyed if a non-Codex Chapter got their own special units and weapons as well as the Vanilla Marines' new goodies.

Although I wasn't in the hobby when the 5th Edition Blood Angels Codex was released, I can understand the frustration that Vanilla Marine players experienced when C:BA, which had plenty of its own special units, also got Sternguard and Vanguard. To add insult to injury, they also got cheaper Devastators (so much for being a close combat oriented Chapter). Back in 2011, I remember seeing at least one player post, "why play Vanilla when Blood Angels do everything they do and more?"

I've found helfrost weaponry to be one of the more interesting additions to Space Wolves. According to White Dwarf, helfrost weapons instantaneously chill a target to absolute zero, which causes even extremely durable materials to shatter. The weapons are supposedly powered by "glimmerfrost crystals", which are only found under Allfather Peak on the Space Wolves' homeworld of Fenris. Although the Adeptus Mechanicus is unable to explain how the crystals work, the Space Wolves are content to accept them as a gift from the All Father and believe that they started to grow when the Emperor discovered Leman Russ.

TL helfrost cannon (far left) and helfrost destructor (middle and far right)

For me, one of the most entertaining aspects to the 40K universe is the mysticism that surrounds the technology. Like so many other things in the 41st Millennium, the question of whether helfrost weapons are in fact mystical (i.e., psychic-based), or simply so advanced that the technology is indistinguishable from magic, will probably be left unanswered.

A Possible Origin for Advanced Astartes Weapons
Not long after I first saw the conical emitters and glowing components of the helfrost weapons, I was reminded of the grav-weapons of the Codex-compliant Space Marine Chapters:

One one hand we have a hyper-advanced weapon that can instantly drop an object's temperature to absolute zero and, on the other, we have one that can suddenly increase the local gravitational field. From the similarity in appearance, I suspect that the technologies behind helfrost weaponry and grav-weaponry are meant to be related. Although mankind saw a brief renaissance during the Emperor's rule, the heyday of human technology ended thousands of years before the Imperium's founding. The fluff makes it unlikely that a device that could make use of glimmerfrost crystals could have been developed after the crystals' discovery.

In both cases, the science behind these weapons is either hopelessly lost or shrouded in mysticism. Assuming the two are related, both would have originated during the Dark Age of Technology; a period of ten millennia during which mankind made fantastic scientific advancements and began to colonize the stars in earnest.

During that era, humanity undoubtedly would have come across examples of alien technology from races long thought to be extinct. Although the backwards society of the 41st Millennium don't even understand how most of their own weapons work, what if humans from the golden age of humanity had the know-how to reverse engineer advanced alien devices?

As soon as I saw the general shape and green glow of 6th Edition Space Marines' grav-weapons, I was immediately reminded of the weapons of another faction; one that was entirely dormant during the Age of Technology and that may have left examples of their scientific prowess lying around:

Grav-weapons bear a surprising
resemblance to Tesla Destructors

The Doomsday Cannon and the Helfrost Destructor aren't too dissimilar

I admit that it's entirely possible that the GW model designers just don't have a lot of imagination when it comes to designing advanced directed energy weapons. However, it seems odd that some of the Astartes' most powerful and mysterious weapons deviate so significantly from anything else the Imperium of Man has. And it's suspicious that these weapons just happen to resemble the weapons built by a mysterious, absurdly ancient race that was taking a nap while mankind was at the peak of its technology capabilities.

But If I Were Going to Play an Unbound Army...

So I've already said that the 40K Cabal would probably stick to Battle-forged armies in our games. However, not a day after we had agreed that we would generally stick to the Force Organization Chart, we each started fantasizing about what our Unbound army would look like. It's notable that many of our fantasy builds weren't based on their competitiveness (although some would undoubtedly be powerful), but on a theme that appealed to us.

For example, Sam loved the idea of a pre-awakening Necron army. This would be a force built entirely of Tomb World guardians like Canoptek Wraiths, Spyders, Scarabs, and Forge World's Tomb Sentinel and Tomb Stalker.

My ideal Unbound army came to me immediately. Regular visitors to this blog are surely aware of my fascination with Sternguard/Tyrannic War Veterans (see here, here, here...), so of course my fantasy army ended up being composed entirely of 1st Company Veterans and their support vehicles.

This weekend I assembled the following 2490 point list that made me positively giddy:

• Terminator Captain (Agemman) w/ thunder hammer and the Shield Eternal
• Chaplain Cassius
• 5 Man Sternguard Squad w/ 3 combi-flamers; Sergeant w/ lightning claw and melta bombs
• Razorback transport with TL assault cannon
• 10 Man Sternguard Squad w/ 3 combi-gravs; Sergeant w/ melta bombs
• Drop Pod transport
• 10 Man Sternguard Squad w/ 3 combi-meltas; Sergeant w/ melta bombs
• Drop Pod transport
• Stormtalon Gunship w/ TL lascannon
• 7 Assault Terminators w/ 3 storm shields and thunder hammers and 4 pairs of lightning claws
• Land Raider Crusader transport w/ multi-melta
• Venerable Dreadnought w/ TL lascannon and heavy flamer
• Drop Pod transport
• Predator w/ TL lascannon and lascannon sponsons
• Stormraven w/ TL lascannon, TL multi-melta, and hurricane bolter sponsons
• Aegis Defence Line w/ Comms Relay

This is very similar to several of my other lists. Obviously the biggest difference is that the Troops section has been filled with Sternguard. Because the Veterans are so much more expensive than normal Troops, I had to reduce the amount of Heavy Support, which usually includes Centurions with a Land Raider and Devastators.

This list puts a lot of points into very few wounds, but it can do some pretty mean stuff. The Math-Hammer shows that three combi-meltas fired under the Ultramarine Tactical Doctrine (i.e., Tactical Squads re-roll fails to hit while all other squads re-roll ones) will explode an AV14 vehicle 68% of the time and an AV13 vehicle 84% of the time. And three combi-gravs and seven bolters firing Hellfire rounds under the Tactical Doctrine will kill a Wraithknight in a single volley more than 50% of the time.

In fact, I liked this list so much that I made a Battle-forged version by tweaking one of the Sternguard Squads and putting it in Elites. I dropped the other two Sternguard Squads and took out Cassius (who was going to accompany the smaller squad in the Razorback) and replaced them with three 10 man Tactical Squads spread across two Drop Pods and a lascannon Razorback. While not as versatile as the Sternguard, the Tactical Squads are equipped to perform similar tasks.

40K 7th Edition: And Another Rumor Bites the Dust

Well that didn't take long. Not two days after I post my reasons for not believing the rumors about 40K moving to a percentage-based system, conflicting rumors come out. But this time, they came with pictures from an upcoming issue of White Dwarf.

I don't want to post the photos for legal reasons, but you can find a link here. I'm going to accept these as legitimate. I've been Photoshopping for years, and these images show none of the obvious signs of manipulation.

Here's the most interesting part:

If you're a Warhammer 40,000 player you'll be familiar with the Force Organisation Chart. It's still there in the new Warhammer 40,000, and if you follow it, your army is referred to as 'Battle-forged'. A Battle-forged army is a very desirable thing as it gets certain in-game bonuses. But there's another way to use your miniatures, and that comes in the form of taking an Unbound army. Basically, Unbound armies allow you to take whatever you want from your collection, and throw the Force Organisation chart out of the window (while still adhering to unit sizes and heeding the relationships described in the all-new Allies Matrix).

So, not only are we not moving to a highly restrictive percentage-based force organization, but now we'll have the option to field an Unbound army that's effectively a mini-Apocalypse force (except with some Allies restrictions). Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the exact opposite of what those rumors from a "reliable source" were saying.

How could anyone have doubted that they
would try to sell as much plastic as possible?

Upon hearing about the anything goes option, the percentage proponents are already declaring the game to be doomed. However, I'm rather happy that GW didn't go the more restrictive route. That being said, I see the 40K Cabal playing Battle-forged armies almost exclusively, with the occasional prearranged Unbound game. As I said in my last post, the Cabal is composed of friends who are capable of coming to mature agreements about the kinds of games we play. Unless the bonuses for Battle-forged armies are significant, I could see Unbound games becoming very one-sided.

Also of note is that they've added six Maelstrom of War missions in addition to the existing Eternal War missions. Maelstrom of War uses a deck of Tactical Objective cards that give you objectives ranging from controlling markers to eliminating enemy characters, vehicles, flyers, etc. Once you achieve your objectives, you get the points and draw new ones. This could be pretty interesting as it may add a dynamic element that the current missions don't have.

Additionally, there's now a psychic phase and it looks like the way psykers are used has changed a bit. Although the White Dwarf goes into little detail, apparently manifestation of psychic powers will involve a Warp Charge pool that involves a number of dice equal to the roll of a D6 plus the total of your psykers' Mastery levels. A player can use as many of the dice as he wants to manifest powers, but the more you use the more likely you are to suffer Perils of the Warp, which is now a table with "some very scary results".

The new edition is supposed to be "fully compatible with all existing Codexes, supplements and rules expansions."

40K 7th Edition: Why I Don't Believe the Rumored Changes

What Rumors?
Okay, I do believe some of the rumors. Specifically, it seems apparent that a new rulebook is being released and that it will be at least somewhat different that the current rulebook. The fact that the rulebook is labeled as "No longer available" on GW's website, and has been unavailable for a while, certainly indicates that something is going on.

Gone so soon?

What I don't believe are the wild rumors that 7th Edition is going to fundamentally change the way we play the game. At first, the rumors made perfect sense. Several sources were referring to the new book as "version 6.5" or "revised 6th". These rumors said that the new book would incorporate the FAQs as well as the rules for Escalation and Stronghold Assault. (Stronghold Assault's "recommended" building rules make infinitely more sense than the ones released with 6th.) Others said that there would also be a few simple tweaks that would partially nullify certain extremely powerful builds; e.g., it was said that Prescience would no longer be the Primaris Power for Divination. (I really wanted to field Chief Librarian Tigurius and to take advantage of this power, but I can see why you wouldn't want such a potent ability to be the Primaris Power.)

It was around this time that the rumors started running wild. People started talking about percentage limitations replacing the Force Organization Chart and that some complicated system called "sideboards" would be introduced that would allow players to choose from among preset sublists of their army upon seeing their opponent's army. Supposedly this information was being provided by a "reliable source". Not long after, actual percentage values were being posted.

Please bear in mind that I have no direct access to any rumor sources. All I have is a grasp of mathematics and a basic understanding of economics and human behavior. Nor is this meant as a criticism of the owner of Faeit212; Naftka seems like a decent guy with a positive attitude about the game who simply reports rumors for the entertainment of geeks like us. Mostly I'm writing this because the rumors don't stand up to scrutiny. I also hope to debunk the notion that a percentage based system would "balance" the game.

What's This About Percentages?
I'm not going to touch the sideboard issue since our group would probably skip the mechanic altogether. The whole concept seems to cater to the hyper-competitive tournament crowd, which a) doesn't sound like something GW would do and b) doesn't remotely describe the 40K Cabal. What I will address is the supposed abandonment of the Force Organization Chart in favor of a percentage system.

According to one source, the percentages would be:

• 10%-30% HQ (single character HQ Warlords can break this limit)
• 40%+ Troops
• < 20% Elites
• < 25% Fast Attack
• < 25% Heavy Support
• < 25% Lords of War
• < 20% Fortifications
• < 25% Allies, Secondary Detachments, or Allied Army formations
• < 50% Primary Army formations.

I've seen a huge number of positive comments about such a system in the comments sections of various rumor sites. "It will get rid of the Death Stars" they say, "it will finally balance the game" they say.

It will do no such thing.

Why This Rumor Is Absurd:
First of all, lets look at what these percentages would mean to a 2000 point game:

• 200-600 points of HQ (single character HQ Warlords can break this limit)
• 800+ points of Troops
• < 400 points of Elites
• < 500 points of Fast Attack
• < 500 points of Heavy Support
• < 500 points of Lords of War
• < 400 points of  Fortifications
• < 500 points of Allies, Secondary Detachments, or Allied Army formations
• < 1000 points of Primary Army formations.

Wait a minute; less than 400 points of Elites? A mimimum-sized squad of Terminators with a Land Raider comes in at 450 points. Do we really believe that GW would give us a new rule set that would prohibit Vanilla Marines from fielding the iconic five man Terminator Squad and their Land Raider transport in a 2000 point game? If that's the case, you can definitely forget about bringing a slightly larger squad and taking advantage of the increased transport capacity of the Land Raider Crusader.

It should be obvious that a 20% limit would be devastating for Space Marines, which are very dependent on their Elites.

But I just finished these, you can't take them away from me!

What about 500 points for Heavy Support? Just last year GW gave us Centurions who could take a Land Raider as a Dedicated Transport. I hope nobody wanted to put both the lascannons and the missile launchers on those Centurions; three Centurions with just the TL lascannon upgrade and a Land Raider would already max out the rumored limit on Heavy Support.

According to the rumor, the majority of the
content of a codex is just meant to tease us.

How about the shiny new thing in the game, Escalation? Supposedly we'd only be allotted 25% for a Lord of War. Space Marines can only field a Thunderhawk, which comes in at 685 points (775 with the turbo-laser destructor). To bring the lone Lord of War that my Ultramarines are allowed, the game would have to be 2740 points or 3100 points if I want to bring a useful weapon. Eldar are even worse; they wouldn't be able to field their 900 point Lord of War in anything under a 3600 point game. The Cabal plays Escalation games at around 2500 points, which is a decent level for the size of most of our armies. We would completely lose interest if we were required to play 3000+ point games just to allow some of our members to bring their Lord of War.

Sorry Eldar players, the rumors say
that GW doesn't want you to buy
this $330 model anymore

Driving people away from playing with expensive Super-heavy models; does that sound like GW's modus operandi?

So we've seen how absurdly restrictive this purported percentage system would be. How about the other end; 40%+ of Troops:

Raise your hand if you own 800 points of basic Troops. I sure don't, and except for the few that have HQs that can change Elites or Fast Attack units into Troops, neither do any of my fellow Cabal members. It gets even worse in our 2500 point Escalation games, where you would be required to bring 1000 points of Troops. Oh, and to play a 3600 point game so our Eldar player can use his Lord of War? 1440 points. I have absolutely no desire to paint or field 800 points of Tactical Marines, let alone 1440 points.

Without upgrades, Space Marines would have to bring over 57 Tactical Marines to meet the supposed minimum value in a 2000 point game (and 72 for a 2500 point game). It's technically possible to get the model count down to 25, but that's only through taking the most expensive upgrades possible, which most players will recognize as being uncompetitive.

A much more viable list would still involve 30+ Marines with several upgrades, two drop pods, and two Razorbacks with TL lascannons. That's an awful lot of power armor to paint just to be able to play a basic 2000 point game.

And that's just Marines, who have relatively expensive models and could get away with a low model count. Does anyone care to crunch the numbers on how may Guardsmen would be needed to add up to 800 points? Or Orks? If a 2000 point Ork army tried to minimize its model count by taking almost every upgrade (i.e., one squad being upgraded to 'Ard Boyz and each squad having a Rokkit Launcha, a power klaw Nob with a Bosspole, and a Trukk), it would still have 60 Troop models. How many Ork players actually want to paint that many infantry? How many people want to face 55 Boyz and 5 power klaw Nobs, all of them in Trukks, and 12 of them 'Ard Boyz?

Why Percentages Wouldn't "Balance" the Game
"No more Riptide spam!" the believers cheer. "No more triple Heldrakes!" Okay, so percentage based lists would demolish the much hated Death Stars (which I've never seen since the Cabal avoids spam as being completely uninteresting)...

...and would merely shift the advantage to other armies. Azrael would be an auto-include in Dark Angels armies so their Ravenwing Attack Squadrons and Deathwing Terminators would count towards their 40%+ of Troops. Sure, you wouldn't see Tau dominating the tables anymore, but you would have plenty of Wave Serpents and Spiritseers leading units of Wraithguard. Grey Knight Terminators and Draigo's Paladins would be everywhere. Typhus, his Plague Marines, and hordes of Plague Zombies would take the place of the Heldrake spam.

And we thought we saw these guys a lot in 5th Edition.

And since those of us who can't play such shenanigans with our Troop slots would be stuck with extremely limited numbers of Elites and Heavies, we would have a difficult time countering the new Death Stars. Our basic Troops simply couldn't compete with the kind of variety that certain armies can field.

Here's the problem; the current 40K codexes weren't designed around a percentage system. Armies such as mine were designed around the idea that there would be a relatively small number of durable troops fighting alongside some very expensive Elite and Heavy units. A percentage system would disfavor my army while favoring those that have cheaper Elites and Heavies or that have more flexible Troop options. Is it really that hard to see that balance is the last thing that would come out of such a system?

Just out of curiosity, how many people in a casual setting regularly see Riptide spam or triple Heldrakes? I don't know about other gaming clubs (the Cabal is a pretty closed group, after all) but none of us spam anything. None of us have any interest in painting or playing spam, nor do we want to alienate our fellow gamers, most of whom were friends before we even started playing 40K together. In comment after comment I see people declaring that percentages would eliminate spam, but all I see is a rule that would force most of the Cabal members into extremely boring and restrictive lists just to "fix" a problem that casual gamers like us don't have.

A Complete Change in Philosophy?
So, I think I've shown why a percentage based system (especially one with the rumored percentage values) would be a bad idea. I'm not saying that GW doesn't occasionally make bad decisions, but I believe that they would have considered the consequences of fundamentally altering 40K's Force Organization and rejected the idea.

But even if they did suddenly decide to address the supposed problem of imbalance, why would they choose such a restrictive method? For months they've enthusiastically expressed the attitude of "play what you want" by releasing Escalation, Imperial Knights, Inquisition, Militarum Tempestus, dataslates, etc. Given how quickly people snatched up the Knights, this approach seems to have been reasonably successful; why would they immediately turn around and severely restrict army builds? Why would they renege on everything they've done for months, force gamers to abandon their new toys, and risk a huge customer backlash?

Wait, you wanted to actually play with your Knights?

Other than the rumors from "trusted sources", there's no evidence that GW has any intention of changing course.

Since decisions that affect rulebooks aren't made on the fly, we should have seen them reflected in recent publications. Can anyone point to any indications that percentages are coming? It seems to me that the Astra Militarum Codex clearly declares that there are no major changes on the horizon. After all, why would it still have vehicle squadrons if the Force Organization Chart is going away? The codex now includes Tank Commanders and allows them to bring two additional tanks in an HQ slot. Was that so GW could laugh when the 10% HQ limit prevented Guard players from taking more than a single command tank in anything less than a 3000 point game? And now Guard Troops and several upgrades are even cheaper; was that to make sure that when many Guard players found themselves unable to meet the 40%+ Troop requirement that they would have to build and paint even more models?

Giving Guard players a new codex with interesting units and builds and then immediately forcing them into playing a horde army a few months later isn't a recipe for success or balance, it's a way to enrage your customers and drive them out of the game. Regardless of what GW-haters may think, I don't believe that GW's current management is that dense.

The Timeline
It's apparent that the rumored changes would adversely affect multiple armies and that they don't match GW's philosophy. For the sake of argument, let's say that GW is willing to completely change course (which they tend not to do because they're an extremely conservative corporation) and that they don't realize or don't care that several armies will get the short end of the stick. Would it make sense that now, only a few years after the release of the edition that was 'here to stay', they would be poised to drastically alter the game? Would they even have had the time to do it?

As I understand it, a completely new edition of the rulebook can take years to develop. Even a revised codex like the C:SM that added a few units, tweaked a few points values, and introduced Chapter Tactics will be in the works for a year or more. When would GW have even started a reengineering of the Force Organization mechanic?

Many argue that these changes are meant to counter the various Death Stars and power builds, but the most notorious of these (i.e., the Tau/Eldar combinations) were introduced less than a year ago. The 40K community itself didn't even really know which way the meta was going until fairly recently. How long would it take for GW to concede that there may be a problem, particularly when said problem seems to exist mostly in the tournament/hyper-competitive scene that GW says it doesn't care about? Then, how long would it take to completely redesign a fundamental mechanic (i.e., percentages versus the Force Organization Chart) as well as devise a mechanic that's completely new to the game (i.e., sideboards)? Once that's done, how long would it take to play test it and publish it? Oh, and all this has to happen while your game design team is expected to be developing codexes and dataslates and releasing them at an unprecedented rate.

The time frame is completely unrealistic.

It Makes No Financial Sense
GW has said it time and time again; 40K is a "beer and pretzels game". Many of us in the Cabal are teetotalers, and those who do drink don't want a sober opponent to have an advantage, so ours is more of a Dr Pepper and Doritos game. Either way, GW has clearly stated that it isn't interested in catering to the tournament crowd. And it seems to be the more competitive gamers among us who think that a percentage system or sideboards will solve their problems.

GW is a business, and as a business they are more interested in selling models than they are in severely restricting our lists so that the game is more "balanced" for the competitive players. Making popular combinations difficult or impossible to field (e.g., Terminators or Centurions with a Land Raider transport) while forcing gamers to meet an unreasonably high minimum Troop requirement would cause huge swaths of players to simply quit. With a handful of exceptions, it would drive multiple armies into extraordinarily boring lists (not unlike many tournament lists, now that I think about it). Most of us in the Cabal would simply refuse to play that way.

Those who didn't despair at the idea of painting and playing with huge numbers of Troops and quit would certainly end up buying more Troop models, but it would be at a net loss for GW. Troop kits are some of the cheapest sets that GW sells, while relatively expensive kits like Leman Russes, Dreadnoughts, Riptides, Wraithknights, Land Raiders, Centurions, Terminators, or Imperial Knights would simply sit on the shelves since their numbers in a reasonably-sized game would be extremely restricted.

Captain Agemman has some strongly
worded opinions regarding these rumors.

For example, I now run 8 Assault Terminators (3 TH/SS, 5 LC) in a Land Raider Crusader with a multi-melta. These guys are my heavy hitters and come in at a cost of 595 points. Under the rumored percentage system I could only take the squad in a 3000 point game. (In the meantime, Carl and Jake could bring as many Terminators and Land Raiders as they wanted with the right HQ; balance!) As I said earlier, even if I dropped the squad down to its minimum number and points cost, a 20% limit on Elites would mean that I still couldn't field the squad and their transport in a 2000 point game.

The Crusader's transport capacity is very attractive and encourages players to buy two boxes of Terminators to take advantage of it. At retail price, the two Terminator boxes and the Land Raider Crusader cost $174.25. Even if you go cheap, a single box of Terminators and the Crusader still cost $124.25. But if you can't take them in a standard-sized game, why would anyone spend that much? A Dreadnought model costs $46.25, but who's going to get one when they can't even fit Terminators with a Dedicated Transport into their lists?

Gee, I really wanted to spend $152.25 to field that Devastator Centurion Squad and their Land Raider so I could counter all those Wraithguard and DA/GK Terminators I keep having to fight, but they come in at over the allotted 500 points with the necessary upgrades. I guess I'm just going to skip that $74.25 Land Raider. Or maybe I'll just get a box of Devastators and a Razorback for $76.25 instead. And with the 500 point limit on Heavy Support, I think I'll leave that new $65 Stalker on the game store's shelf.

Boy those Imperial Knights are pretty cool. I'd love to buy two or three of those $140 beauties and take them as Allies, but I'd have to play a 3000 point game to have two and a 4500 point game to have three. I don't want to play games that big, and I certainly don't want to paint even more Troops. Maybe I'll just get one.

I can have three Knights in an Allied Detachment?
Only if we're playing Apocalypse, apparently.

Does any of this sound like GW's policies? Does making the game boring for most players and discouraging them from buying the latest and greatest model kits sound like GW?

My Sinking Opinion on Rumors
I've lost a lot of confidence in the rumormongers recently, even with so-called "reliable sources". Not only did IG not get the new artillery models that they were supposed to get, but they saw rules for the previous units disappear. There were even rumors of plastic Steel Legion kits, complete with some of the most blatantly Photoshopped images I've ever seen. Tyranid rumors, such as the supposed ability to ally with themselves, were entirely off base. Most of the rumored Eldar models never materialized. And I clearly remember a persistent rumor that claimed that Space Marines were going to get specialized Razorbacks.

I have regularly visited 40K rumor sites since I got into the hobby, but now I'm regretting the time I spend there. The rumors seem to be getting less and less accurate yet they still succeed in riling up the 40K community with outrageous claims or wishlisting. The Steel Legion Photoshop fakes may have been some of the most egregious. Despite the efforts of myself and others to convince our fellow gamers of the truth, there were many more who were convinced that they were real.

I see the same thing with the latest batch of rumors. It makes no sense that GW would risk alienating players in exchange for little or no financial gain. Yet there are those who are already trying to play games according to the rumored rules as if they were established fact. It reminds me of those who started playing according to the "leaked" 6th Edition rulebook, which turned out to be an early play test copy at best and a total fraud at worst.

The only rumors that make sense are the ones saying that FAQs, Escalation, and Stronghold Assault will be incorporated into the book. And maybe they'll add a couple tweaks to allies and Prescience too. Anything else is wishlisting, misinformation, or trolling.

Escalation and 40K Formations

Just over a week ago I jotted down some preliminary thoughts on Escalation. Now that people are finally getting their copies, we have a little bit more information. My biggest question has finally been answered, and it wasn't the answer I was hoping for.

Army Detachments and Lords of War

As is obvious to regular readers of this blog, I play an Ultramarine army. Although the Space Marines don't generally have direct access to Baneblade or Shadowsword variants, Super-Heavy tanks operated by the Imperial Guard or a PDF often accompany the Astartes into battle. In the story of the Battle of Macragge, we're told that the Ultramar Auxilia had a Baneblade called the Pride of Hera that was eventually destroyed by a Carnifex brood.

Although the Baneblade and Shadowsword variants are Imperial Guard Super-Heavy tanks, I had hoped that Astartes armies would be allowed to bring one as their Lord of War choice. Barring that, I had assumed that I would be able to bring an Imperial Guard Allied Detachment (which I would depict as the Ultramar Auxilia) that would supply the Lord of War. Unfortunately, the word is now out that a Lord of War can only be provided by the Primary Detachment.

Before this month, I wouldn't have been surprised by how strict Escalation is. For the sake of balance, it would have made perfect sense to me that only the Primary Detachment would be allowed to supply the Lord of War, although I still would have been disappointed that my Ultramarines would only have access to a prohibitively expensive model. However, it's hard to explain the relative conservatism of Escalation in light of the no-holds-barred nature of the recently introduced 40K Formations.

40K Formations
For those who are unfamiliar with the new 40K Formations, the idea is that, in addition to the Primary Detachment and any Allied Detachment, an army can also take along an additional detachment composed of a specific group of units. This Formation interacts with the Primary Detachment according to allies rules (e.g., a Space Marine detachment would treat a Tau Formation as Battle Brothers) but it is otherwise unaffected by normal Force Organization rules.

One word: "Broken"

Our Cabal is pretty open-minded, but Formations immediately worried us. The concern lay in the fact that they completely bypass the Force Organization of an Allied Detachment. The only thing that had previously limited allies was the fact that you were required to bring an HQ and at least one Troop. Once you had paid this "price of admission", you were limited to selecting a single unit from each of the remaining slots. This forced the player to make some hard choices about what tradeoffs he was willing to make and prevented him from loading up on only the best units from another army.

However, Formations eliminate most of the drawbacks deliberately designed into the allies rules. The first Formation revealed, Tau Firebase Support Cadre, consists of a Riptide Battlesuit and six Broadsides. It doesn't require a player to sink points into an HQ or Troops that he doesn't necessarily want. Instead, as long as he has the points and the relatively liberal Allies Matrix allows it, he can add a very powerful Elite choice and two Heavy Support choices to his Primary Detachment. Unless an opponent has brought some Formations of his own, it could be a very uneven and unenjoyable game for him.

I appreciate that GW wants to open up their rules for those who want more options (they seem to be producing a small-scale form of Apocalypse), and I'm sure that there are plenty of players who will have a lot of fun using Formations, but the Cabal has made a gentleman's agreement not to use them just to keep our games friendly.

Back to Escalation
As I was saying, the philosophy behind the Escalation rules and the concept of Formations seem to be at odds. In a game where my Ultramarines can take a Firebase Support Cadre free of any of the usual limitations that come with an Allied Detachment, why can't Marines with Imperial Guard allies bring a Baneblade? Not only is this inconsistent from a gaming perspective, but it's entirely contrary to the fluff.

I was really hoping to bring this in an allied force

I have two theories on why GW might have decided to go this way. My first is that the writers of Escalation and the writers of the Formation rules weren't quite on the same page. I assume that the authors of the former actually wanted to limit Allied shenanigans (e.g., no Tau Primary Detachment accompanied by a minimal Eldar force and their Revenant Titan). It's also possible that they wanted to increase the diversity of units on the tabletop. Given how inexpensive Baneblades and Shadowswords are (both monetarily and points-wise) and since IG can ally with just about everyone, a huge number of Escalation games could easily end up with both sides bringing some form of Baneblade.

My second theory has to do with business. Obviously, the primary intent of both Formations and Escalation is to make money. I'm sure that the rules writers and model designers also want us to enjoy the game, but at the end of the day they like to eat and have a roof over their heads, too. I previously suggested that the point of introducing Super-Heavies into regular games of 40K was to increase the demand for large plastic models. I think that the restrictions of Escalation support this idea and may indicate the imminent release of additional models.

With its high points value, the
Revenant Titan is bargain

If I worked at GW and were asked to increase demand for large plastic models, I think I would come up with something like Escalation. Not everyone has the time or the money to play huge Apocalypse games, so I would introduce Super-Heavies into the regular game. And what if the company was interested in releasing plastic versions of existing resin models, but didn't want to proceed until they were certain that there would be sufficient demand? Since many of those who play an army without its own plastic Super-Heavy (e.g., Space Marines, Tau, Eldar) would simply bring an IG allied force with a Super-Heavy tank if given the option (and might even be reluctant to buy their faction-specific Super-Heavy when it was finally released), I would require that the Lord of War be specific to the Primary Detachment.

Escalation and the Legendary Plastic Thunderhawk
To be able to compete in Escalation, some players might end up buying a resin Super-Heavy from Forge World. Fortunately, the new supplement limits armies to bringing only the "smallest" Super-Heavies. At the current exchange rate, the Tau Tiger Shark is $244, the Eldar Revenant Titan is $319, and the Tyranid Harridan is $384. These prices are much higher than the $160 GW charges for a Khorne Lord of Skulls or a Necron Tesseract Vault, but I can actually see many serious gamers saving up for them.

After looking over a few of my 2000 point lists, I've calculated that the total monetary value of the models in each list is around $650. That means that the price of most Escalation-legal Forge World models is about half that of a 2000 point Space Marine army. (And who owns only 2000 points, anyway?) At $319, the 900 point Revenant Titan turns out to be a pretty good value. It costs about 50% as much as a 2000 point army while its addition to that army would increase its total points value by 45%.

Where we really run into a problem is with the Lord of War for GW's most popular faction; i.e., Space Marines in their various incarnations. The Thunderhawk is worth 685 points and can reach a value of 775 points with the Turbo-laser destructor upgrade. The model, while admittedly much larger than many other Super-Heavy models, currently sells for over $650. That's more than twice as much as a Revenant Titan and four times as much as GW's most expensive plastic model. An upgraded Thunderhawk would cost as much as an entire 2000 point army but add only 39% to the points value of the army. In other words, Escalation limits players of GW's most popular armies to the resin-only model with the least bang for their buck.

When it comes to 40K I'm pretty stupid with money, but even I can't justify a $650 price tag for a single 775 point resin model.

Why would GW limit C:SM players to the Thunderhawk?

I think the primary reason why GW limited thousands of Space Marine players to fielding the prohibitively expensive Thunderhawk is because it won't be that expensive for much longer. My theory is that Escalation and its restriction against Space Marines taking an IG Super-Heavy in an Allied Detachment will have finally created the demand GW wanted/needed to justify making their largest plastic kit ever (which will still be smaller than some of the model airplanes I put together as a kid). I wouldn't be surprised if we saw the mythical plastic Thunderhawk by the first anniversary of Escalation.

What Do We Do Until Then?
I predict that many Astartes fans who want to participate in games using the Escalation supplement will choose to field a single Guard Command Squad and two squads of Veterans as their Primary Detachment just so they can play with a cheap Super-Heavy tank. Their preferred army will be represented by a maxed-out Allied Detachment. In fact, about a week ago I made a theoretical 2500 point IG list that included a Super-Heavy tank and Ultramarine allies just in case the Lord of War was restricted to the Primary. Even with a Baneblade or a Shadowsword, the minimized IG Primary Detachment only took up about 35% of the total points value.

Bryce has already offered to buy my Baneblade and Shadowsword models for his own Steel Legion. If I knew for certain that a plastic Thunderhawk were on its way, I would strongly consider it. Right now, though, I'm actually rather fond of the Guard Super-Heavies and will probably end up buying a minimal Guard army just so I can use them.