Warhammer 40,000 Open Day – In Detail

DISPLAY CABINETS:
Display cabinets were in their usual space, behind Bugmans. ForgeWorld had one side, GW the other, and the short end was a White Dwarf table weirdly. The ForgeWorld cabinets were a bit spartan from what we’ve been treated to previously, the only new stuff were items that could be purchased on the day, the completed Ordinatus Ulator, and the CAD for the Ordinatus Sagitar (and some books with transfers and brass etch in). Mark Bedford was doing some painting in his new Dark Mechanicum colour scheme to a Triaros, alongside a cabinet with 3 Knights and a Thanatar already done in the bone colour. Surprisingly he was able to do the painting of the two Knights and the Thanatar part time over two weeks (e.g. over lunch breaks), and he may have convinced me to go and buy more Mech stuff from the ForgeWorld store.

The GW cabinets felt familiar. One set had a lot of the Adeptus Mechanicus in it, another had a lot of the new Tau models in (up to, but not beyond this weekends release). There were a couple of designers there, they had the demo pod, but there was nothing “new”. Sure some people thought it was good to see the models, but these are the same exact models that we see on their website, and in White Dwarf, and no doubt shortly in Visions – just now we can see them behind a sheet of glass. It was difficult to get excited about anything. I did overhear peoples conversations about various things – but anything about the future was shot down quickly, so no news about anything beyond this weeks releases.

CITADEL DESIGN SEMINAR (12:30 – 13:30):
Presented by one of the GW rules designers and Laurie Goulding (representing the rules, and the narrative).
The first part of this Seminar came down to a run through of how they make the rules and narrative for a new model. The cynic in you starts to roll it’s eyes when one of the opening sentences is along the lines of “We start when a new model is presented to Design Team, and we’re told to come up with some rules and background for it”. This sounds exaggerated, like someone from the miniatures side of the building produces a KV128 Stormsurge (built and painted to ‘Eavy Metal standard) and says “We made this, make rules and background so we can sell it!” – but this is literally the example we were given! I know!

We were then told how they assign a rules designer and a writer to come up with everything from what it should be called, what it’s rules are, some interesting info about it, etc. It really did feel like is was a ” … For Dummies” view of the process, and was really obvious – you assumed that this was how they did things, and they told you it was.

Q&A followed, but with a very clear edict from the start. There were to be no questions about future releases or direction, as they were not allowed to answer anything about that, and all questions had to be GW related. by now you could feel the mood in the room was really quite low, but there were some good questions raised that were answered in a fashion. There was one about the determination of whether a new unit is a Super-Heavy Walker vs a Gargantuan Creature, which had some nice anecdotal stories but came down to a “it depends” answer. Another good question was around determining points cost for a new model / unit, which again had some nice anecdotal stories but came down to a “think what a decent value is, playtest, adjust”. Nothing really insightful, more confirming what we already knew.

FAQs was broached, specifically around when would we get a new batch as a lot are really old now. They let that one past even though technically it dealt with future operations, and again it felt like a wishy-washy answer. Are they going to go through a big batch of FAQs? – No. What they do do is look at more Erratas than FAQs (i.e. issues with mistakes rather than confusion) and seek to correct them where possible. This could result in changing out digital content where appropriate, or for physical copies of books may require pages being swapped out when a new run is ordered. The focus here was more around fixing mistakes rather than addressing points of confusion that an FAQ would cover. Therefore if your FAQ can be solved by a tightening of the rules, they’d prefer to do it that way. Personally, I think this is a cop-out, but this is from the same seminar that hammers it home that they don’t want you discussing anything beyond this week, and miniatures come first with rules and story in 2nd and 3rd place.

Oh, and Laurie got special dispensation to reveal 4 new pieces of artwork for the next 4 HH novels. We saw two today (War Without End, and Pharos), and the other two will be shown tomorrow. Apparently the HH novel series is already set out, and they know how many there will be and what they will cover – I’m not sure what to make of that, or whether it’s true, but it’s what Laurie said so I have to give some degree accuracy. FYI – for those debating whether the jump pack marines in Pharos are Night Lords or Ultramarines, they’re Night Lords. Also War Without End has a particularly ‘Gangsta’ Imperial Fist with his arms crossed over his chest.
Colour me disillusioned on this one.

FORGEWORLD SEMINAR (13:30 – 14:30):
This is the Seminar people were wanting to see, and I’ve covered off in pictures the bulk of what was previewed from the PowerPoint slide pack. Andy Hoare and Mark Bedford heading this one up.

The theme of the book are the Shadow Wars – don’t be confused, these isn’t the Shadow Crusade of Lorgar and Angron over Ultramar (a.k.a “Boyz on Tour – 007M31 to ?”), but is instead covering the events on the perimiter of the war and away from the Primarchs and other big characters and campaigns. it’s battles where small forces on both sides are enagaging on multiple fronts, but isn’t focussed in any one part of the galaxy. It’s another Conquest book, but we knew that.

From a narrative perspective there’s 5 campaigns that are covered, and will cover the forces detailed earlier (Blood Angels, Dark Angels, White Scars, Shatterred Legions, Blackshields and Knights Errant). The first three Legions will be covered off in the campaigns to give them some background and feel for them before they get their full book release, so it looks like White Scars will be facing off against the Alpha Legion. These aren’t the notorious battles, but smaller incidents not directly in line with the bulk of their Legion forces. Shattered Legions aren’t just the three surviving loyalist Legions from Istvvan V, but can be any groups of Legions. You can use the ruleset to represent Traitor forces looking to mop up loyalist remains from Istvvan V (as per Tybalt Mar from the Meduson novel), or for loyalist elements in traitor legions who have banded together in the fight for the Emperor, or even within Loyalist elements that weren’t at Istvvan (say Imperium Secondus Legions) or even combining loyalist elements of traitor legions with loyalists, and vice-versa. This looks like it could be complicated rules wise, but also apparently gives some new ways of looking at army building and collecting.

Blackshields are starting to be fleshed out now. They’re definately developed from simply being a collection of loyalists from traitor legions who have shed their colours, and are now being moved to a much more aggressive and combat-hungry group who have shed their Legion identity for any number of reasons. One example we were given to was that Blackshield units wouldn’t be traditional Legion units, and for example wouldn’t have Tactical squads because they no longer think in terms of Legion doctrine. A follow on in the Q&A also drives this a bit further, with a question around Iron Hands Legion rules for after Ferrus’ death. Apparently the Iron Hands will have a new RoW for post Istvvan V which builds on the loss of their Primarch and how they develop into the Meduson led Legion they becomes, or alternatively moddelling them around the Blackshield rules to show the extent of their fall to madness and throwing everything to the wind for vengeance.

Knights Errant, apparently included so everyone would stop asking about when they / Garro would be included. They’re not squads. There will be Garro and the Ultramarines Librarian (don’t know the name, haven’t listened to the audios) as special characters, and customisable HQ choice dubbed “build your own Knight Errant”. Apparently you can give him skills and weapons / items to reflect your own character. Could be fun, but I know some will be disappointed around not having a full force of them.For new units, most of the stuff in there we’ve already seen models for and just get rules for. For the Ordinatus, these are the Ordinatus Minor in the Mechanicum Red Book just given page space in the main book. The Conemptor-Cortus is apparently a lighter-weight Contemptor, quick on it’s feet and more designed for combat and getting in close. Described at one point as ‘Scrappy’, which made me make the correlation that if a regular Contemptor was Scooby doo, the Cortus would be Scrappy doo – smaller and more aggressive. We’ll see what the model is like.

Artwork – the Salamanders ‘Disciple of the Flames’ is apparently similar to that annoying character in Deathfire that constantly shouts “VULKAN LIVES!!!” the whole way through the book. Kind of a chaplain in feel (my interpretation) that preaches about the survival / denounces the death of Vulkan within the Legion. For the Dark Angels apparently Book VI will have three Wings documented: Iron Wing, Dread Wing (I think, anybody confirm?) and the precursor of the Raven Wing. I can’t remember about the Blackshield Chymeriae, I think I was uploading pics at the time and may have missed it – although it is interesting to see it in MkV.

Horus Heresy Masterclass book is at the printers, and should be available soonish, maybe a couple of months. Also Retribution (hard not to call it Retalliation) has been finished and is about to be sent to the printers, with an ETA of the next Weekender for release (first weekend of February)

For the 40k fans on the forum jonesing for some 40k news from a 40k open day, the new Doom of Mymeara book is imminent, and the Eldar section is a complete re-write from an army list side. New rules, new units, new HQs, worked from the bottom up. We got some previews of Corsair jetbikes (upgrade kit) and new Wraithknight. Nothing about the Imperial side of the action (nothing on an absent Bran Redmaw either)

Delving into the Q&A:

– Alpha Legion headhunters came back from production on Friday and are looking good, so should be release soonish.
– Tyrant Siege Termies are a bit weird. Previously we heard they were near complete, but it looks like they’ve not had the go-ahead as people weren’t happy with them and are being re-done. interestingly It think they said they were being re-purposed for use within the Blackshields, and so would have to be re-done from the ground-up rather than touch-up what they already had. Again, a second source on that would be appreciated.
– Garro would be released probably before Retribution is released, but not sure when.
– Questoris Knight list would be updated with the new Warden / Crusader plastic kit as well as the new Atrapos.
– I’ll try to see if anything jogs my memory, but these were the salient points I think.

OVERALL:
I left not long after the ForgeWorld Seminar. I got some pics of Garro in the cabinets, and headed out.

For a “40k Open” day, there wasn’t a lot of openness around 40k. There was literally nothing to get you excited about anything, anything there was already seen in White Dwarf or on the main GW site (or from leaks on the web). There was minimal Black Library presences, which I though was odd considering there’s a huge 40k related (32k maybe) book series taking over the entirity of next year. Lots of people wanted to know something more about the upcoming stuff, and it was all shut down quickly and effectively. Not a sniff of plastic 30k anywhere, even the Tau / Raven Guard campaign was barely there. The demo pods looked ok, although I spent an equivalent time talking to Mark Bedford about painting big stompy robots, but if you take away ForgeWorld (cabinets and sales), I’m not sure how much different it would be from a regular weekday in Warhammer World? gaming tables, sure, they’d be there to play on outside of the event. The Exhibition Hall is still open, and you can see all the current GW merchandise assembled and painted. Literally the only thing would be being able to meet and talk to people within the Design team, and a Seminar that confirmed a lot of what you already assumed. At least ForgeWorld got you excited about something and provided some decent talking points, without that I think I would be asking for my money back on the ticket price.This isn’t meant to be read as a GW rant, and please don’t kill this thread based on this Mods, but I think GW are just taking the mickey on the clampdown of rumours and leaks. I didn’t come out of that event inspired to do more 40k, I didn’t come out of that event feeling I’d learnt something useful / interesting / positive about the behind-the-scenes of the GW / 40k machine. I feel like I’ve walked through a living White Dwarf experience, and I stopped buying that a long time ago. I think I would have been more impressed with a factory tour rather than a seminar, actually going around the inner workings of the production process, and if they conveniently left something out as a one-off allowed leak of an upcoming thing as a “oops, who left that there!” it would have been obvious, but would have given you something to talk about and look forward to. I just can’t see what I got out of this event that I wouldn’t have got out of by going to my local store (leaving ForgeWorld to one side), and going to Warhammer World when it isn’t an Event day. This could have been something cool, and I feel it was a squandered opportunity.
And this is going to be the same thing tomorrow, with swapping out a couple of things (i.e. HH novel artwork), so I just hope nobody bought tickets for both events.

Well my Sunday at the open day lasted an hour and a half. Nothing new to report over yesterday. A low attendance from what I can see, we parked up at 9.50am and were in just after 10am. GW to their credit seem to have sorted getting people into the WW venue quite slickly and the GW/FW/BL stores in WW process the myriad of buyers swiftly and effectively.

Some nice models in the Golden Daemon area but again a very low turn out, even as an avid 40K player I have to say I missed seeing any WHFB/AoS models in the Golden Daemon competition.

Designer area, well at least FW had something new to show us, think I’ll leave it as that. Once again beyond seeing what FW have to offer I don’t see the point of GW running these events for gamers with an internet connection and the ability to search the interwebs to get the latest info on what GW release are up to.

No HH spoilers from GW, not even a tease, a missed opportunity for GW to give us a bit of info on a project we all know is coming our way.

In 2014 GW ran Warhammer Fest, a smaller scale event than their previous UK Gamesday events at the NEC and NIA in Birmingham. This was even smaller and apart from FW I simply don’t see the point of going to future events. Even FW I feel had a lot more to offer us today and were told not to show us everything. Think for 2016 I’ll save the cash and just attend the FW open day.

A disappointing day and another missed opportunity to give us gamers something to really get excited about.

Games day is officially dead. R.I.P.