The giant, my comp has been in the shop and the floodgates opened, catch up post.

Holy cow! I'm out of commission for two weeks and Games Workshop goes and opens up like they're Willy Wonka and we have golden tickets!

First off, two new games have been announced: Shadow Wars: Armageddon (the Kill Team version of Neromunda) which goes on pre-order this weekend...

and then they game some love to their fantasy range with Warhammer Underworld: Shadespire (seemingly a more armies involved version of Gorechosen)

 
you can read more about it here.

I don't have any interest in Shadespire and not much more in Armageddon (I wanted Necromunda as was) but the Armageddon set has some interesting new terrain in it and they have already discussed the other races you'll be able to play besides the starter set of Scout Marines and Orks here. The rules for Armageddon will be playing a part in an upcoming Narrative Campaign a group of likeminded gamers are concocting for when 8th edition drops and I'll be making a separate blog about that soon.

For 40k itself, the Talons of the Emperor box set came out. It has a unit of Custodes, a unit of Sisters of Silence, a variant Land Raider, a variant Rhino, and a Custodes Dreadnought, plus two codexes for a steal at $160. Seems like they will be out and about the universe now that Guilliman has kicked them out of the Imperial Palace on Terra. Also, a plastic Thunderhawk is soon to be released and tons of people will be grabbing one.

On the Age of Sigma side of things an entire race has been added to the game: Kharadron Overlords! They are steampunk sky dwarfs, buzzing around in zeppelins and the like. I know quite a few people that are interested in this army and are already waiting for pre-orders, which will hit the GW website this weekend when the new White Dwarf comes out.

Also, Games Workshop is getting into the apparel business with a new webstore: Warhammer Wargear! The selection is a little limited right now since they just opened up but I am looking forward to seeing what they have down the line for Eldar clothing.

Did I miss anything you felt needed mentioning? Feel free to leave a comment and it may get turned into a topic for an upcoming blog post!

The second Spider-man: Homecoming trailer has arrived!

Well I'm just as ecstatic as I was when I saw the first trailer and when I saw his appearance in Civil War! What do you folks think?

New 40k army confirmed

It has been an avalanche of new news today. Early this morning Bell of Lost Souls posted a lengthy rumor from 75Hastings69, someone they vetted as a reliable source:

“I wouldn’t be expecting too much in the way of releases for existing chapters from this point going forwards, not that there won’t be ‘some’, expect the focus to shift onto GW pumping out RGs new armies and weapons of destruction for the upcoming storylines/advances/crusade mk2 (who knows there might even be a new starter box on the not too far horizon ) 

Without trying to sound like a dick I’ve known for almost 9 months where this story was going and who revived RG etc. if the rest of what I was told is true (new marines, Mortarion and his plague armies etc.) then there are truly some very exciting times coming for 40k players/hobbyists! 

…Imagine how the sigmarines are to the standard empire soldier. Wouldn’t it be a weird twist of fate if AoS copy pasted space marines into the fantasy setting as Sigmar’s answer to chaos always winning, that somehow w40k kind of copy pasted the end times and reboot of fantasy AoS into 40k with the same fundamental idea….. hence new marines will spearhead offensive for the emperor following on from current w40k fluff events/outcome.

…New marines will make old marines seem like empire now seem to sigmarines …… if that makes sense? 

…I’m not suggesting anything gets squatted. I said clearly focus will be on new marines rather than existing chapters, but existing chapters will still get releases.
I don’t get it, people are happy they’re moving the story/timeline on but don’t want anything to change, they want just their chapter to get new toys yet complain SM have too much, 40k players should think themselves lucky that they didn’t get the same treatment that WFB fans did with the destruction of the setting and large parts of models/armies. What’s the point of the hobby for Bret or tomb kings players?
I see new marines as a chance to have the best of both worlds, SM originals don’t get endless variants and units but are still in the fight, new marines are like a new army to build up from scratch pretty much, I’m sure they’d happily ally so don’t really see what the problem is. 

…The answer to that is simply I don’t know. I was told they new marines are different to current marines, I imagine (at least fluff wise) they SHOULD be their own army, however that’s not to say they wont also be added to existing chapters as a choice somehow, in fact from a sales point of view it would probably be better to offer them to existing marine players as something new they can buy. I really doubt the iconic space marine kit will be retired so I wouldn’t worry too much about them becoming outdated. I guess fluffwise it would be no different than older armour classes still being around in 40k, sure the new marines would be out there, but a lot of existing marines are still out there too.”

No sooner than that, the following image hit the internet:

In the new Talons of the Emperor box we obviously gain a Custodes dreadnought, rhino, land raider, a unit of Custodes, and a unit of Sisters of Silence. Below is the Warhammer Community page's write up of this:

Talons of the Emperor in the 41st MillenniumClad in baroque, golden artificer armour and armed with priceless relic weaponry, the Talons of the Emperor are joining the battlefields of the 41st Millennium.
Rules for using the elite Adeptus Custodes, Sisters of Silence, their vehicles and two brand new detachments (one each) in your games of Warhammer 40,000 will be available very soon, both in this box set and as separate digital downloads.
The personal bodyguards of the Emperor himself have come to quell the Gathering Storm; this is your chance to lead them into battle.

And then right after THAT, this was momentarily viewable on the Black Library page:

So, there you have it! The Custodes are coming to join the war in the 41st millennium. It would seem that when Roboute Guilliman gets to Terra he sees the Custodes as a wasted resource in their seclusion on Terra and have given them the boot out of the Imperial Palace. Are you excited to see these highly skilled titans joining the war?

 

The Fallen, Guilliman, and more pages from GSIII

More leaked images have begun to float around the internet and it will undoubtedly continue as the weekend release of Gathering Storm III approaches. Yesterday, the page from GSIII showing Guilliman's points and stats hit the internet along with a data sheet out of the Imperial Triumvirate box from tarar2d2:

A lot of moaning has already hit the internet and fallen into 2 camps: either Guilliman is too powerful for his points and will wreck the game or he is worthless because he can't join units and will quickly get ganked. My two cents, based on his performance on the Warhammer Twitch battle on 3/3 is that he will wreck face and is the perfect representation of a Primarch on the tabletop. Except for his 6" movement. Honestly, they should have given him a move of 12 as the guy is genetically modified to be all spider monkey fast but it's a small gripe. Trust me, he works like he should. Some people just aren't going to like that.


Now on to the extra stuff that is coming out. Now, a couple scans of the rules for The Fallen (the Dark Angels that sided with Luther during the Horus Heresy) have hit the internet. Pretty interesting, I'd say:

The image comes from blogger La Voz de Horus and he goes on to explain the rules for them. Since you may not be able to read Spanish, or care to Google Translate the info they load out similarly to the typical tactical squad, adding 5 more marines, access to combi weapons, heavy weapons, and what not. The blogger doesn't seem to know if The Fallen get access to rhinos or drop pods, so I'm not entirely sure if they will get them if it isn't stated on the data sheet. Feel free to check out the original post here.
Now, the potential for major spoilers lies below. Bell of Lost Souls posted all of these on Imgur, and while they are almost all fluff one page does describe the Fallen Angels formation rules and a scenario.

I'll let you check out the rest here. To be honest, a quick scan of the pages didn't reveal the specifics of how Guilliman is restored or what happens when he gets to Terra but it is revealed that he faces not only Skarbrand but Magnus as well. Presumably he comes out on top of these two encounters because he DOES make it to Terra.

Are you still excited about what Gathering Storm III will reveal this weekend?

The cost of the Primarch has been revealed!

I feel like he is a bit under-costed but at least he is ripe for South Park Lock Ness monster quotes. He is still a Lord of War and will be stuck out in the open all by his self, so there are ways to combat him. Space Marine players are going to have a TON of fun with him, though.

Logan movie review

As the credits rolled at the end of the movie and Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around started playing I took stock of the two hour and fifteen minutes of ending I had just viewed, I mentally shrugged and thought "Eh." Now that may not sound like much, I get it, but further explanation may make it seem more positive than it seems.

Logan is the final chapter of Hugh Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine, and recently discovered it will also be the final time Patrick Stewart will play Charles Xavier. This movie serves as a very dark, troubled ending for these two characters. Both of them have made it to this point in their lives with tragedy haunting their steps on top of the fact that the mutants are dying out. There haven't been any new mutants born in 25 years and there are few that remain. More on that in the spoilers.

This movie delivers on the premise that a rated R Wolverine film will show you a lot of death. That's why I bought a ticket. Ever since I saw him running around in X-Men 2 I knew that Wolverine is one of those characters that exists in his full form beyond a PG-13 rating. In that regard, the film is a success. People die. Horribly. You get to see an old, in pain, killer do "What He Does Best" in multiple scenes. You get to see what he would have looked like in his prime going full Wolvie-berserker style." You get to see what a child with claws and insoluble rage do to people who want to attack her. And you get your fill of it. It is satisfying.

The story, not that much. It's a decent story but I don't feel like anything really hit me as emotionally consequential. There are moments of pain, regret, humor, and quick glimpses of happiness but it really feels like it is just a driving force of moments towards the finale of the movie.

Overall, the movie is worth watching. Let's be honest, a shrug and an "eh" are a sight beyond the shattered dreams of all the X movies that have come before. Every other movie has a small group of amazing scenes interspersed amongst two plus hours of crap. Logan isn't that. It never has a bad scene. It has some awesome action pieces. But the scattering of moments that are supposed to be meaningful just don't grab at you. And I REALLY wish they did. I wanted this movie to be cathartic at the end. The best version of what this movie could have been was Unforgiven with Clint Eastwood. That's the kind of send off I wanted from Logan. I wanted to close the book, so to speak, and be satisfied. I just wasn't. Hopefully you may have a different experience.



SPOILERS!



Ok, you shouldn't be looking if you don't want to know things. So here we go. Some of the things that were missed opportunities were the hinted at moments of the past that got the characters into such a broken state. Charles is succumbing to dementia or some other type of neurological degeneration, causing massively potent seizures where as many as 400 people are forcefully frozen in place and suffocated. He takes pills and injections to keep him mentally subdued lest he have a grand mal seizure and kill people or he dies from the strain. A couple of mentions are given to an event "a year ago in Westchester" but we don't know what happened. Did he kill the X-Men? Did students die? No idea.

Logan is another unanswered question. Hints are given to a specific incident where he did something terrible but nothing is revealed. Again, did he kill the X-men like in the Old Man Logan storyline? He is also dying but has no idea why other than to venture a guess that it could be the adamantium in his body finally poisoning him. He has no real idea and doesn't seem to care, either. Kinda weak sauce, if you ask me. He want's to die, that seems apparent, but with an explanation that is just as sensible as Padme dying of a broken heart there doesn't seem to be much oomph behind his decline.

And where are all the mutants you ask? Why have there not been more in 25 years? Was it the final push of sentinels that rounded them up? The Legacy Virus? The Terrigen Mists? No, the worst villain ever to confront mutants: GMOs. I shit you not. GMOs are used to basically negate the x-gene in the worldwide populace. The future of human evolution is halted by going organic and gluten free. What. The. Hell? That just makes me sad. No mention of what happened to the X-Men themselves is never revealed, though again hints that they all met violent ends are peppered into the story of Logan.

Charles Xavier dies in the film by being stabbed in the chest by a cloned version of Wolverine. Read that again for confirmation. There is a scene in the film where it is revealed the children are created from genetic material from mutants to create a personal army. In the reveal the children are considered a failure and another plan where they create the ultimate weapon without any soul or remorse is going to be the ultimate culmination of their research. There are separate body parts in bubbling water tanks and schematics. I was reminded of this:

But it was just a younger version of Logan. There are several scenes where the old and the new fight each other, and even X-23 ties into the fight too. But it reminded me of this:

Was Omega Red busy? There had to be a better option. Anyway, other than the initial shock of Professor X dying I didn't feel much about his death. The parts of the film that dealt with his invalidity meant much more too me, to be honest. The scene where Logan buries him is touching, but could have been much further developed than what it was. Logan's death at the hands of his evil doppelganger. His compromised immune system finally succumbs to the catastrophic damage he has taken and he dies. X-23 does have a touching moment by his grave where she quotes a poignant line from Shane (a western I'm sure most people have never seen but you should check it out) but that's about it. She and the rest of the escaped children then leave to Canada though we have no idea if the safe haven they are searching for actually exists.

Then the screen goes dark.

Sure, I admit these may be nitpicky complaints or observations but they are the things that stuck out to me that made me want more. Like I said above, the movie didn't disappoint me it just didn't offer me enough to tie a nice ribbon on Jackman and Stewart's involvement in the series.

Screen grabs on Roboute Guilliman's stats!

As you can see, Roboute (pronounced Row -bo- wtuh- A) is a monstrous creature (character). His stats are sixes across the board (I imagine his WS is highter). He has a 2+/3++, and if he manages to be slain he can return on a 4+ with d3 wounds. Presumably he can do this continuously thanks to the armor and you can read the rest of his armor's info below.

The gun stats in the top of this image apply to the gun attached to his gauntlet. 24", S6. AP2, Assault 3, rending is pretty sweet.

What little bit we can see on the Sword of the Emperor is nice. Strength 10, AP1, Melee, Armorbane, Concussion, Soul Blaze, Touch of the Emperor, Whirling Flame. They said that he can hit at x2 strength and the sword can be a d weapon. Pretty gnarly.

Make sure to check out the Twitch channel to watch Roboute Guilliman fight against the forces of Chaos!