Anyway, let's get this done and over with, and I'll go visit my dad in the hospital again in the afternoon.
I won't touch much on the Warhammer 40,000 stuff (go watch Chapter Master Valrak's channel for more details, he's vindicated as always), so I'll just sum it up. Red Corsairs have been revealed, with Huron Blackheart's command squad, the Masters of the Maelstrom (a mirror of Titus's Wardens of Ultramar), getting their own boxset. They have a new unit, Red Corsair Raiders, which fall between Legionaries and Chosen and have a lot of special weapons (meltaguns?). Additionally, they also have an upgrade sprue for Red Corsairs shoulder pads for both Legionaries and Terminators (both of whom are inside the boxset), and a Reave Captain to lead all of them.
Facing against them are the Aeldari Corsairs, led by none other than the legendary Yriel, the hero of Craftworld Iyanden! They are joined by a new unit called Skyreavers and a new named character, Kharseth the Aethyrmancer. So he/she is a Void Dreamer, and I wonder if we'll get a generic Void Dreamer. I'm still wishing for a generic Krieg Marshal (and not forced to bring Dreir). Anyway, they also have a Vyper/Starfang, which a dual kit that allows you to build either vehicle. The Voidscarred also make a return - you'll remember them from Kill Team!
They have a new campaign book that's the counterpart or follow up to 500 Worlds: Titus. The Battle for Unity Begins. It's The Maelstrom: Lair of the Tyrant! Just like the 500 Worlds bookset, you'll have a new campaign system, a book for the new detachments, something to do with Characters (so a little different from the Dread Incursions/Boarding Actions that we have for 500 Worlds), and most importantly, the lore book! I can't wait to read the lore! Though with the bloody bookset costing US$80, I don't have the budget (I haven't purchased 500 Worlds because I'm allocating my hobby budget to the Mechanicum Skitarii battle group and the Journal Tactica: The Steel Hand of Mars).
Speaking of Journal Tactica, we have a new one announced! The Mailed Fist: Legiones Astartes Super-heavy Tanks. Not only that, we also have the plastic kit for the Glaive! This is my favorite Legiones Astartes super-heavy tank, and I'll definitely get one either for my Thousand Sons or Dark Angels (I only have the space and budget for one). Which Legion he'll belong to remains to be seen, but I will eventually add a Sicarian Venator and hopefully a Sicarian Omega (if it ever comes out in plastic), and I'm guessing I'll just go Ironwing with Dark Angels. If necessary, my Thousand Sons could have raided a Dark Angels outpost and plundered the vehicles for their own use, heh...
Just look at this beauty! I can't wait to get my hands on one! I think he'll look amazing in black, red and silver! He uses the same chassis as the Fellblade, and mounts one of my favorite weapons - the volkite carronade. If you've been following my blog, you know that I'm a huge fan of volkite weapons. Hell, this is another reason why I'm inclined toward Dark Angels. I have squads of Inductii armed with volkite chargers, my Terminators wield volkite chargers (and a plasma blaster). This volkite weapon dials it up to eleven and fires 12 Strength 8 AP 3 Damage 2 with Deflagrate 8 shots. It incinerates even Space Marines in power armor. However, they mentioned in the stream that super-heavy tanks will receive updated datasheets in this Journal Tactica, so it remains to be seen if they'll change the rules or datasheets. I wonder what lore this Journal Tactica has? I want to read and find out what's this whole lore is about!
Oh, and they're joined by a new plastic Whirlwind on the Rhino Chassis. As you can see, he has a huge missile launcher that will that fires at targets that you don't have line of sight to. Apparently, you can fire different missiles, such as high explosives or incendiary Pyrax rounds.
However, the real star of the show is the Legio Custodes! The Legio Custodes battle group looks amazing, and is filled with new Legio Custodes miniatures in plastic! These used to be in resin, and now they've been ported over to plastic! This time, unlike the 40K stuff, I'll go deep into detail for each and every one of them.
So we have a 6-men Custodian Guard, who's the standard stock Custodians with guardian spears that we all know and love. Mirroring them is a 6-men Custodian Sentinels, wo are equipped with Sentinel warblades and praesidium shields. Both types (and I suspect it'll be a dual kit) can be used in Warhammer 40,000 as well, because they have the exact same options, wargear, etc. Nice.
They are accompanied by the Caladius Annihilator grav-tank, which mounts a more powerful gravis lascannon (or twin lascannons) called the Arachnus blaze carronade. We also have the hull twin lastrum bolt cannon, which can be swapped for a newly conceived neutronium cascade projector. Cool.
But what I'm really interested in are the Contemptor Dreadnoughts! The Contemptor-Achillus Dreadnought - armed with the Achillus Dreadspear - and the Contemptor-Galatus - equipped with the Galatus warblade and praesidium shield - are now in plastic! They were previously in resin, and it's awesome to see them now in plastic!
I think they're a dual-kit, so you can build either. I think I'll build both. Anyway, leading all of them is a new shield-captain. There's an option for a female head, but there's no reason why you can use the helmed option or swap the head for one of the options in the Custodian Guard/Sentinels boxes. And if you want female Custodes, then all the more power to you. I personally think having more options is better, and I won't argue about the whole "shoehorned into the lore" thing. It's been what, 2 years since the Adeptus Custodes codex in 10th edition, and at this point, it's time to move on. It's not like you're being forced to assemble female Custodes - there are still plenty of options to build male ones, and you can't tell their gender apart with helms (you can say they're male, female, both or neither if you really want, your homebrew is up to you). Especially when we have such rich kitbashing options (I bet you can stick Space Marine or Imperial Guard heads on these Custodian miniatures and they'll still work!). Quite frankly, there's no going back. I mean, what do you want Games Workshop to do, retcon the retcon and go back to "only men can become Custodes?" That sounds implausible.
We also have plastic Venatari! The winged dudes with kinetic destroyers or Verutum lances. The jumppack Custodes, in other words. We also have the alternate version of the Caladius grav-tank, which is the twin Iliastus accelerator cannon that fires 6 Strength 8 shots, an upgunned version of the accelerator autocannons mounted on Sicarian battle tanks. I think I prefer the annihilator.
Last, but not least, we have the colossal Coronus grav carrier! Possessing Deep Strike, he's the perfect transport for ferrying your Custodes around, and in the stream, he's huge. Like, literally huge. Almost as big as the Glaive, and almost super-heavy size. Awesome.
Apparently, this is just the first wave of plastic Custodes miniatures, and more will continue to be ported over from resin to plastic in the future, such as the Aquillon Terminators. I can't wait! Accompanying all these new plastic miniatures is the Liber Custodes, which contains rules for the Legio Custodes, Sisters of Silence and the Divisio Assassinorum.
You can continue to use Horus Heresy era Custodes in Warhammer 40,000 10th edition, thanks to Imperial Armor. Apparently, there will be a rules update for later this year, but you can already use all of these models thanks to Imperial Armor and faction packs updates. I suspect the rules update will either add the new weapons, such as the neutronium cascade projector, to datasheets...or Legends them. I have no idea, but I can only be cautiously optimistic.
No news on Sisters of Silence models. In the stream, they mentioned there are new models yet, but they might come in the future. They will definitely have rules in the Liber, though. That's all I can say. And people are wondering that if you have female Custodes, how come we don't have a male Brotherhood of Blanks (sounds better than Brothers of Silence)? Where do all the male blanks go? Apparently, they either become Culexus Assassins or Titan Princeps of the Ordo Sinister, piloting psi-Titans. I assume we'll have a much greater number of male Culexus Assassins, given that a significant portion of female blanks have been tithed to the Emperor for the Sisterhood of Silence. But it'll be cool if Games Workshop explores this avenue (I doubt they will, though) in either lore or models, and come up with something similar. I mean, not outright a Brotherhood of Blanks, but maybe a nod in the lore acknowledging there are more male Culexus Assassins and Ordo Sinister Titan Princeps than female ones? I don't know, that's something fans can discuss. I think it's more productive than simply whining about "woke" and raging against female Custodes.
To clarify, I'm not commenting on the "female Custodes being shoehorned into the lore" or "execution is bad" argument. I'm referring to comments such as "There's female Custodes? I refuse to buy them!" Now, everyone has the right to decide what they want to buy, and I have no intention of persuading you to buy miniatures you don't want. But there's a huge difference between "There are options for both male and female, but I choose to assemble male models because that's my personal preference" and "How dare you give female options to a previously male-only Custodes army? I'm going to boycott it!" The latter just seems to be outright hostility and intolerance to anything you perceive not conforming to your values/beliefs about a constantly changing and modernizing product. You don't have to agree with the design or idea, and you don't have to like or dislike something, but making hostile comments like this alienates other hobbyists (I still recall being told "there are no Asians in Warhammer 40,000"). It's sufficient to say, "Nope, I'm not buying the new Custodes because they're not my thing/I don't like the changes," instead of going "I'm going to boycott this new woke Games Workshop!" Especially when you have the choice to do an all-men Custodes squad and no one is forcing you to glue female heads on your miniatures. More options are always better, everyone is happy and everyone wins. Like, what's the logic behind limiting options? "Everyone should agree with my own headcanon that Custodes can only be male, and anyone who has the option to do female models are falling into the woke agenda!" That just sounds silly.
As for the lore, again, I won't comment on it because I don't really have any opinion on it either way. Is it bad execution? I don't know. All I can say is that I've seen major retcons to both the Imperial Guard and Imperial Knights - both of which used to male dominated in the past lore (read Black Library novels in the 2000s and first half of the 2010s) - and then they quietly diversified them and now we have plenty of Guardswomen and noblewomen piloting Knights. On both sides (Imperium and Chaos). No one has an issue with that. Anyway, if it's the "shoehorning into the lore that you've trouble with, I'd encourage you to homebrew and make up your own head-canon, like I did with my own story. This is the perfect chance to go back to the whole "Warhammer 40,000 sandbox" that we did in the earlier days, before the arrival of Primarchs, and we could do whatever we like or make up whatever story we wanted. Invent your own justification, go wild, we don't need Warhammer 40,000 to come up with "new lore to justify" - they've canonized diversity, so let's diversify the universe with homebrew theories and headcanon stories!
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