Hello Death Guard – Let’s Get This GW Show On the Road!
The Death Guard are upon us. Let’s hope 2021 is off with a bang for GW!
The big news is the Death Guard are coming! We just got word of the full release on the way this week and it’s not a moment too soon. We’re getting the Codex, a new Combat Patrol – with Typhus no less! We’re getting the new terrain piece, the Miasmic Magnifier, the new Terminator HQ, and a bunch of reboxed units.
In short it’s a lot, and with the Death Guard being one of 40K’s most popular factions – the excitement is palpable. But it’s more than that – this has been a holiday season like no other. We went back and checked – the last 40K or Age of Sigmar releases from GW was the Blood angel release in November. With miniatures being hard to find for a month before that – the community has been jonesing for new hotness to sink our hobby teeth into for about three months now – a drought in the first year of a new edition like no other.
YOU get Typhus, and YOU get Typhus – EVERYONE gets Typhus!
As we are getting into 2021, you can feel the patience wearing thin on the community. Folks are not only ready for in-person gaming and hanging out with gamers, they NEED it. As we all sit in our hobby holes going over the ever smaller list of hobby tasks to keep us busy, I think of that line of Bilbo’s to Gandalf in Fellowship of the Ring – “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” I think we’re all there mentally.
Let’s Get Moving
Death Guard will keep us happy for a couple of weeks and of course everyone will take some time to digest the FAQs and the updated points from last week. So we’re off to a good start for January. GW says they are planning releases every two weeks for now rather than weekly, but they will want to get back to regular order of business as fast as possible. With UK lockdowns extended until mid February, we can only hope that things may get back to normal release wise sooner than later.
We certainly have multiple releases piling up from:
- Space Marines (yes, minis and Dark Angels still)
- Drukhari
- Hedonites of Slaanesh
- Random Necrons
Of the upcoming stuff, I’m most excited about Hedonites, and have very high expectations. They feel like another Necron-lite major redo of an entire range. Those are the most bang for the buck and generate the most excitement. I also think the new Hedonites may be design leaders for a future Emperor’s Children aesthetic. I will be studying them closely.
The Clock is Ticking
But the elephant in the room is this. At some point the hobby will start to take a hit long-term if we can’t get back to gaming in person sooner than later. Miniature wargaming is a physical person to person activity. It’s not like video games, or even role-playing games that can be done easily while in isolation. D&D is booming for example. Tabletop miniatures players will come flocking back once things get back to normal, and even before then, having things to buy and paint fills in the gaps while people can’t play face to face.
But the clock is ticking. I hope the Death Guard are part of the solution.
