Warhammer Fest Preview Day 4: Boxed Games Roundtable

Warhammer Fest is fully online this year, but that means we all get to watch the reveals in real time, every day this week! Each day we’ll be having a round table to recap our very important hot takes. Day three focused on Black Library related content and none of us know how to read, so we skipped that one. If you’re interested in the Mortal Realms then we talked about day one here, and day two’s Warhammer 40k updates are here. Otherwise, stick around for takes from all your favorite Plastic Spaceman Enthusiasts, plus also Condit is here:

Greg
SRM
Bair
Garrett “John Condit” Severson
Liam “Corrode” Royle
Andrew "Kenji" Smith
Raf “Crabtainraffi” Cordero
Andrew "Pendulin" Haywood
Ben “Thundercloud” Rubery

Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm: Elathain’s Soulraid

Credit: Warhammer Community

Credit: https://twitter.com/david_j_roth/status/212767135901024256

Greg: I love the crab. I would die, or kill, for him. Mostly it’s nice to see that the game designers read Meatwatch.

SRM: CREB! CREB! CREB!

There’s some wet elves in this set that look good but who cares about those knife-eared nerds, we’ve got a crab and a fish that look dope as hell.

Condit: I wonder what the Crab’s Inspire condition is going to be?

Greg: If the crab doesn’t have the ability to either smoke cigarettes or hold a knife - possibly both at the same time - I will never forgive Games Workshop.

SRM: I imagine a jaunty tune where Direchasm has no accusations, just unfriendly crustaceans

crabtainraffi: I have a bits box stuffed full of Deepkin swords and I know exactly what I’m doing with them. 10/10 crab.

Pendulin: Why do warbands keep evolving into crabs, and how can I speed up this process?

Thundercloud: I like the crab, I like the fish, overall it looks like a nice little painting project.

Bair: Why the fuck is the crab red? It’s already cooked? Is it an Aqshian crab?

Necromunda: House of Shadow

The Necromunday crew will be covering this one in more detail soon, but here are some takes from the less-qualified among us to tide you over.

Credit: Warhammer Community

SRM: They’re going hard with the late 90s cybergoth shit for Delaque and it owns. The Dark City Strangers look has leveled up with katana-wielding trenchcoat kids and the squid robot things from The Matrix. It sounds like they’re leaning more into some of the psyker-adjacent theming for Delaque in House of Shadow, and I’m excited to see that fleshed out. Delaque Spykers were one of the few psykers in the game before, and I’m happy to see some more.

Pendulin: I came for the Dark City vibe, I stayed for the psychic babies in power armor.

Greg: I don’t care about any of this except for the guy with the samurai sword, who I care about a whole lot.

SRM: When you get your drip on at Hot Topic before spending 6 hours in Excalibur talking to the cashier about your shuriken technique.

Thundercloud: Delaques get a bunch of weird stuff and no juves in plastic. I can see this stuff turning up in a variety of sci-fi skirmish games, because the Cyber Brain Squid is delightfully weird.

Condit: Imagine looking at the weird cyber-squid thing and not immediately buying a box of Delaques. For shame, Greg.

Greg: There are only two things that I identify as strongly enough to make purchases off of: one is being a Sword Guy, which this release hits bang-on, and the other is a Muscle Wife Guy, and Eschers already exist.

Condit: Time to lobby Muscle Wife to go as the Piscean Spektor for Halloween 2021, I guess.

Greg: I’m still trying to sell her on the Tall Dracula From Resident Evil, to be honest.

Crabtainraffi: The Piscean Spektor is well on the patch of carcinization. 6/10 on the path to crab.

Aeronautica Imperialis: Wrath of Angels

Credit: Warhammer Community

Liam: PLASTIC THUNDERHAWK

SRM: There’s been the notion in the community that Aeronautica was a dead game, since there hasn’t been all that much communication from GW on it in a minute. I’m thrilled to see that’s not the case, and that we’re getting some more of the factions teased in some of the earlier books. This is also my chance to own some of those Space Marine flyers without having to deal with multi-pound resin blocks on flight stands, or the nightmare hybrid kit that is the Storm Eagle.

Greg: Speaking of which, you build that Marauder yet, or are you a rank coward?

SRM: You know the answer to this question and I’m hurt that you would think I was anything but a rank coward.

Condit: I’m also interested to see where they go with the Aeldari planes. There’s some room in the game for a more agile faction, and Eldar are the perfect place for that. I am a little disappointed that we don’t have the other planes yet, but I assume they’re probably coming soon.

Greg: Obviously GW is hoping to get a lot of free press out of the plastic Thunderhawk, which is why I refuse to hand it to ‘em on that front. Still, the Space Marines arriving is a sure sign that this is a real game and GW intends to support it. I love the Xiphons and Storms Eagle, the models are all incredible, but my favorite thing by far is that the Eldar Nightwing apparently has variable geometry wings, which is always incredibly cool to see on a plane.

Thundercloud: I am incredibly happy that it’s Marines and Eldar up next, as people love Space Marines and Elf Bullshit (though not the same people). Andy Hoare acknowledged that adding elves to a system was a pretty quick way to ruin a game and he’s taken steps to not do this.

Holofields are apparently more effective the further you are away (so long range gives a lot of protection and short range very little). This should shake the meta up as Orks are both short range and fast, and so could get a boost by being the hard counter to elves while Imperials, with their medium range is best range Thunderbolts and Marauder Destroyers aren’t as good.

The Thunderhawk looks great, even if it’ll end up being 60 points or so given that it's huge and covered in guns.

Storm Eagles are a chunky transport/ground attack, and Thunderhawks are even chunkier. Xiphons, with las weapons again, should be another interesting aircraft. If there are resin Fire Raptors and Stormbirds, that would be great, but three kits actually covers everything Space Marines need.

Eldar planes look good, with Nightwings and Phoenixes, but it’ll be interesting to see if Vampires are plastic or resin, and whether the 40k flyer, the Crimson Hunter, which is actually a really good looking plane, is released (I would guess not).

Condit: Here’s hoping the Hemlock comes soon - I’m really curious to see how they’d handle a psychic plane in Aeronautica.

SRM: I say this without a shred of irony or sarcasm: I am excited to paint a fourth Ultramarines force for a third game system.

Crabtainraffi: The Nightwings have begun the carcinization process. 3/10 on the path to becoming crabs.

Bair: Plastic Thunderhawks are cool for AI I guess, but plastic Thunderhawks on the bases of my Titanicus Titans? Or in the fist of a clawlord? Fuck yes. If Condit doesn’t model a clawlord ripping one up then I’ll be mad.

The Distinct and Noticeable Lack of Titan-Related Announcements

Condit: Goddammit. This is unacceptable.

Greg: 100% agreed, this is criminal negligence on GW’s part. I like the planes, I don’t care about the non-crab Underhole guys, and I only want the Necromunda gang because one of them has a samurai sword, but I wanted some Titans. I don’t know what I was hoping for here - Loyalist Legions just dropped, so the inevitable Traitor version is likely still a ways off, and with the Warmaster just being released after months of teasing, I don’t imagine any new titans are imminent. Still, stings a bit.

Bair: In fairness we have gotten a lot of Titan based goodness the last year that most of us haven’t even gotten to use in games in person yet. And that’s the real sad story. I haven’t even unboxed my second Warmaster yet (maybe a project to start/finish Sunday idk) so this is fine, my wallet needs a break.

Greg: Pour one out also for Blood Bowl, I guess, another game that wasn’t mentioned at all today.

Kenji: Just ducking in here to note that this reads really bad for Blood Bowl; the recent release (review coming soon!) of Death Zone was...not great, and there’s been no new teams, products, or announcements since the big relaunch. Blood Bowl survives on its own legacy, but it’s a bummer to see NOTHING announced for a “new” edition so soon, not even one of the missing star players! Also, since they brought up the Necromunda game, did BB3 fall into development hell?

Thundercloud: Titanicus and Blood Bowl both got releases in the last month. Titanicus has had Volkite weapons announced and the Warbringer Nemesis Titan with Volcano Cannon turn up in White Dwarf, so that’s the next couple of Titanicus releases, and then after that will come the Traitor Legions book and another plastic set. As the next two things are FW they’ll be holding them until they’re sure they’ve got the stock to sell, as the Titanicus FW stuff sells out completely fairly often.

Kenji: So, yes, BB did get a release a few weeks ago, which was a book containing useless, flavor-only rules and Blood Bowl 7s. Other than that, the game has had no new releases or teased content, just updated card packs and dice. It's kind of important to remember that BB2020 was released over 6 months ago and in that time has had no new content, but is still missing star players, new or updated teams, and any idea of a road map. So, yes, they did indeed release Death Zone, but I'd hardly say it got any sort of "content" comparative to even AT; in fact, BB and AI seem to be competing for who can go longer without new releases now.

Bair: I do still wonder if that Warbringer with Volcano was an actual kit or a conversion.

Pendulin: I was hoping against hope that we’d see a Kill Team announcement today. The next Kill Team Annual, a new faction box like Rogue Trader, or even my hope-against-hopes of a Kill Team Second Edition (now with less bad rules). But instead, GW continues to forget Kill Team exists. And don’t get me started on Pariah Nexus. You wouldn’t like me when I’m talking about Pariah Nexus.

Thundercloud: I think we’ll see some new Kill Team thing in the next six months, though as they’re hiring a new design team for it, it might be better to get a complete redo in the 12-18 months it’ll take for that to happen and have a coherent plan and product line.

That’s it for the boxed games preview, and there are no Titans, this sucks! Later today though (6 BST), is the second Warhammer 40k preview and our round table for it will follow on Saturday! See you then!

In the meantime, let us know what you thought of this one. What were your favorite reveals? Are you as mad as we are about the No Titans Zone? Let us know below or at contact@goonhammer.com.