Warhammer 40K: What Vespids & Aquilons Mean For the Future
Goatboy here looking at the GW 40K previews, and what those Vespids and Tempestor Aquilons mean for the game’s future.
Thankfully we got previews to tide us over as we wait for Blood Angels to finally come out. Well not all the previews we want as it was just Kill Team but it does give us some idea on what we’ll see in the future.
The GW Preview was for the new Kill Team Hivestorm set with two new “units” for the respective armies. One of them was an update to an army with a full codex and the other is something I expect will be waiting a while for. Let’s talk about the T’au Empire update and what it really means when you look at it and the future of other ancient models.
The Vespids update is a pretty neat one, as it is one of the first times we saw an old resin unit get reprinted in a new codex. I knew an updated kit was coming because why waste the printed space for such an old unit. This gives me some hope for some of 40K’s other ancient units, and maybe a way to look at things that could get rebuilt and updated.
Hello Vespid Stingwings!
Looking at the Vespids we see a really updated kit with new weapons, different loadouts, and a whole shift in their overall look. I am a big fan of the design as it looks more wasp-like which is a cool thing. It is a pretty unique look in the 40K universe and I am glad the single unit is tweaked with a new kit. I don’t think we need a similar Kroot overhaul for this option but having a cool jump pack equivalent unit for an army designed around “cooperation” between races is a neat thing.
What About Aeldari?
Where does this lead into future stuff? We’ll it probably means we’ll actually get to see two new updated “jump” style units for the Aeldari. I do wonder if we still won’t see a Warp Spider until next year but at the very least we should see Swooping Hawks as they currently fit this year’s theme of Kill Team and multi-layered games. It also gives me hope we’ll see some of the other Jump kits get updates like Raptors for Chaos Space Marines and Stormboyz for Orks.
Tempestor Aquilons
On the other side of the Kill Team box we have some new Scion Tempestor Aquilons with jump packs and I think they look pretty unique. They fit the overall theme of the Scion style for the Astra Militarum, but they are tweaked to fit the new “sizes” of Cadians. They are slight stretched out, which makes them feel a lot more unique looking compared to some of the other jump stuff that ends up feeling kind of chubby. My only real issue with them is they almost feel over designed with all the straps on them which might make them a bit of a pain painting-wise.
Also, Terrain!
Finally the other interesting bit in all of this is the Killteam terrain in the box looks like a good deal of walls and other bits which brings a ton of value to anyone wanting to build up their 40K terrain. With the push to use flat areas to “base” how the terrain sits on the table you can easily see how just having a ton more walls and other mechanic bits will be helpful in creating a scene to play on. Plus all the building bits look pretty cool.
I don’t know if this release means will see a quick Codex for Astra Militarum but we’ll just have to see. I expect that book to have a whole release update like some of the Space Marine supplement armies with a slew of “new” models to cover some of their missing pieces. Really the exciting bit from this update is the fact the Kill Team Terrain in the boxed set looks very useful, and it might be easy to get a batch of it to make a few cool non-mdf covered tables in the future.
Are you team Vespids, or Aquilons?
