Let's have a GW rumors and sneak peeks thread!

[Primarch]

And some more new newcrons.

[Karantu]

Yeah they seems to have revamped units like the Warriors and Flayed Ones and just added a ton of new units, which should hopefully add more list building options. The Silent King and the new C'tan look like a pain to transport though and it'll be interesting to see how their rules turn out since they're supposed to be pretty damn powerful.

Most of the new units seems to draw some design cues from the Ossiarch Bonereapers but that's a two-way street for sure. I'm not a huge fan of the new Warriors though. Their faces look a bit low effort, as if they were drawn by a 5 year old or something and the whole shambling look seems overdone.

The quadrupeds looks cool and remind me of the Blackstone Fortress Guardian Drones which is weird since the Blackstone Fortresses were on the other side of the War in Heaven. Not sure if there's a connection there but they don't look bad and hopefully they add some interesting options in terms of gameplay too.

The SM units on the other hand seem like SM units as you'd expect them. The bikes are straight out of a batman comic which isn't a bad thing but some design elements as Primarch pointed out, don't seem very practical. The executioner dude looks pretty cool but his head ruins the model. He would look better with something like a Chaplain helmet which would fit his executioners sword better. (which some people seem to think doesn't look like a sword because it's not pointy?) I wouldn't be surprised if he had similar rules to the Chaos Master of Executions and was a character hunter.

Another SM unit that I thought was a bit much was the Captain(?) with the shield. Him and those sword and board guys are going to be a pain in the butt for sure. Hopefully they've reworked invulnerable saves and storm shields to not be as troublesome but that might be hoping for a bit too much. Assault intercessors on the other hand seem like an obvious unit that should've existed from day one but better late than never I guess. Their stat lines would make a pretty decent unit but they're going to be held back by their chainswords if they don't get any extra strength or AP somehow. But given that they're Primaris I'm expecting them to have Cawl-pattern-ultra-heavy-Emperor-kissed-xeno-cleaving-chaos-sundering-chainswords of rending +1 to have better stats than the usual chainswords that everyone is used to. Their lack of jetpacks might hold them back too depending on how the new outflanking rules and terrain rules turn out.

[The Other Dave]

My personal prediction is that assault intercessors will get a jump pack option that will only be available when the multipose kit gets released.

All the models look pretty cool, really - I haven't seen anything yet that leaves me cold outright (although again from what we can see the Silent King looks like it'll be extremely busy).

I'm more intrigued in rules updates personally, since as far as I'm concerned we can pretty much take it as a given that most or all of the models they release will be cool-looking. The rumor I've been hearing is that everyone starts with the same set number of CPs, and then you can spend them for specialist detachments, or take "standard" (whatever that may mean) detachments and keep them. Not sure how reliable that is - it might just be GW kremlinology based on the little snippets they've given - but it would go a long way towards taking care of some of the more shenanigany shenanigans in list building and CP banking.

[Karantu]

Assault Intercessors getting jump packs with their multipose kits seems like a very GW thing to do. Especially if the initial datasheets don't mention them and are only added as an optional after the multipose kits are released thus causing people to be stuck with a bunch of useless Assault Intercessors from the new box set. Sounds very on brand.

And yeah their hero/centerpiece units always face the risk of being too dynamic or busy to be a good playing piece for the tabletop.

What I understood from what they said during the live stream was that you get get a higher base amount of CP for being battleforged instead of the current 3 and you need to pay command points to add more codexes. They also mentioned something along the lines of that they want to reduce the disparity between elite and horde armies ability to farm CP through cheap battalions I think so they might reduce the CP earned from a battalion. Either that or they add some rules where you need to pick a primary codex and have prevent detachments from added-on codexes from generating CP or something. If they don't do that the cost of adding a guard detachment might be overshadowed by the CP they generate from being a battalion but since 9th is going to be a perfectly polished edition they wouldn't have made such an oversight right? /s

P.S. Their "marketing" lingo seriously tires me out when I watch their announcements and stuff... I need to remind myself not to take anything they mean literally and that there is a significant potential for the them to make mistakes about rules, lore, etc. And to translate phrases like "all factions", "massive update", and "huge changes" to "focused on a selection of factions greatly biased by what we want to peddle", "significant changes probably with a dash of over compensation or oversight", and "insignificant in the grand scheme of things".

<RANT WARNING>
P.P.S. I just realized that reviving Sisters of Battle was basically them adding female Space Marines to Warhammer in an attempt to diversify the main "cast" of the game to appeal to a broader audience. It's subtle and doesn't seem forced at all so I don't see anything wrong with it and they seem to be trying to diversify their product lines a bit more in terms of race/skin colour too (Which personally I don't care about at all but understand that there are people that need to relate to characters or something?). What I found amusing was the number of people praising GW for moving away from
being nothing but Space Marines shooting their bolters and doing Space Marine things since the Sisters got a decent chunk of screen time and action in the trailer. To me it just looked like a bunch of humans in power armour shooting their bolters and for some reason being overpowered against the xeno threat that is apparently very dangerous and scary. The guardsman cameo only existed to show that the Necrons are actually dangerous and in turn all non-Space Marine factions exist just to illustrate how powerful Space Marines are. Unfortunately, GW seems to be missing out on actual model diversity, which is one of their strengths compared to other games, other than the small bursts of (usually novel) non-Imperium units. One thing they said during their livestream which sort of cracked me up was when they mentioned that the Space Marines' job is to fight the endless threats to the Imperium that exist in the galaxy and that the Space Marine players do that too or something. Too bad its just mostly Space Marines/Imperium against Space Marines/Imperium since they can't be bothered to put more than a minimal amount of effort into other factions. Which is funny since they also mentioned how Chaos is the one with all the infighting.

[Jye Nicolson]

Being used as female space marines is more or less what I'd expect of the Sisters in a "brand" trailer. That sort of high level marketing is not going to get into the nuances but it lets you put a few different heroic faces on the Imperium forces.

I don't think they *actually* fill the role of female space marines though. The Sisters' niche is leaning hard into the faith aspect, and thier mechanics and aesthetic overwhelmingly support this. Their equipment lets them fit a spot between the guard and the superhuman Astartes, but they only exceed human capability when religious fantacism and literal miracles allows them to (hilariously their really good gun is a straight up church organ).

Spaces Marines have enough warrior-monk aesthetic that there's overlap on the venn diagram but they very much derive their power from personal prowess. A Bloody Rose Canoness would be a hell of a scary figure but she'd be literally dwarfed by the size and personal might of a Smash Wolf Lord of any gender (but who would in turn not manifest the miracles of the Emperor while fighting). This is why I don't feel stupid for committing to the Daughters of Russ *just before* a massive wave of new plastic Sisters rolled up to take my money. They're quite different aesthetically and mechanically despite some superficial similarities in equipment.

We know how GW deals with this when decoupled from legacy issues, because for a while now AOS has consistently included women as a minority, but consistently included that minority, in squads and warbands. I'd like the ratios to be a little more even but overall I'm a big fan, and I don't have the urge to collect an all-female Stormcast Eternals band because there's no dumb convention to be contrary towards The Ragnar head I'm not using in 40K is being used for the next recruit to my Sacrosanct Chamber in Warcry!

In 40K where the Imperium has a rich history of terrible ideas, you might want to keep the gender split specifically because it's dumb and squanders talent (even if, like I do, you headcanon female marines being around but passing unnoticed if they're not wolfy lunatics, you have to wonder what happens to people who might make exceptional warriors of faith but are excluded from the Sororitas due to gender. Unusually pious Tempestus Scions?). That lands you in the normal tension between promoting the Imperium as the "good guys" and the Imperium being a horrifying dystopia but that's been a thing from at *least* 2nd ed

[Jye Nicolson]

Also OK with Jump Pack Assault Intercessors coming later. The foot ones are *just fine* as Impulsor passengers, and the only reason you couldn't cheaply convert them from any other Intercessors would be if you thought your opponents wouldn't accept classic Jump Packs for the job (unlikely!). So I feel like I'd use both kinds in Wolves or Scars and wouldn't necessarily need to buy the multipose kit to do it.

[Karantu]

I agree with you that in both the lore and game mechanics the Sisters of Battle aren't female Space Marines but like you said its basically to improve the female representation in their "brand" trailer. Given the vast number of Space Marine chapters there is bound to be a Chapter or two that have aspects that overlap with other Imperial factions for sure so but there are still those nuances that make them different for sure.

I wouldn't be outraged if one day they decided to make female Space Marines for some reason and thus I have nothing against kitbashed female Space Marines either. I just thought that it was an interesting way of dealing with that "problem" and I think it's a clever compromise. But since on the internet there's always going to be someone who's upset, GW can't really win so their subtle approach is probably for the best. (I guess this is a bit hypocritical coming from me after my rant but I hope my tone didn't make me look that outraged.)

In terms of every other line of models, having a proper split would be better but its not a huge issue for me since I always go for the helmeted option so I probably wouldn't notice. For the armies I collect it wouldn't make a difference since you can't tell the difference for un-helmeted Tau, and no ones ready for female Orks... and I don't think gender is an issue when everyone is Alpharius.

The only jetpacks you wolves deserve are the sort of rockets that Wylie Coyote strap to his back. Joking aside go nuts with your conversions. A recognizable conversion is better than a proxy and I don't pick fights over those either.

*Disclaimer*
I don't mean to ruffle anyone's feathers with my opinions, I don't even have a claim in this matter.
On the other hand I will fight anyone who says that the new trailer is better than the Dawn of War 1 opening cinematic.

[Jye Nicolson]

Yeah I think you're exactly right: this is what you do when you're trying to achieve some new goals while still being conservative with your cashcow property.

But I don't think that's the only reason the Sisters refresh got up as a project. It's too good to be a cynical exercise, they must have loved making this army. Having more heroic women to use in marketing definitely would have helped though.

Also the collector's box sold like hotcakes, I assume the main waves have turned a fair bit of plastic into money too

[Karantu]

Yeah I'm pretty sure it wasn't even the main reason why Sisters got a refresh, they deserved a reboot given the state they were in, even if it is an Imperial faction. I would totally love them to bring back squats too and that might actually make me start an Imperial army if they look as good(and silly) as they used to but that seems unlikely. I'm glad its selling well too, hopefully it makes them brave enough to bring back certain things or go back to older IP.

[Jye Nicolson]

Squats should come back with Louise Sugden's colour scheme as their canonical look.